hearts to spare

Eye of Heaven

BY VALERIE MEJER

TRANSLATED BY FORREST GANDER

On paunchy green hills

in some province of China, you are the one I speak to.

Someone buys a perfume, recalling

that the bones of his beloved are small.

When he writes the note, when he wraps

the little bottle, he takes that into account. So do I.

The subtlest trace of mind against your shoulders

is your true skin. And I press myself to you.

I hear the steady rhythm of your typing, the key

of a borrowed pulse. But what difference does it make, that it is given?

For a while it is mine to use, then your turn, but the pulse originates

in the Child of Heaven who has hearts to spare.

Some day you'll sink yourself into a frozen

lake where paper ships were torched with the

names of the missing. Some dead, some vanished.

The flames consume all but

the wisp of smoke on which a single word rises

and water licks at the rest. So we are freed from a weight.

Perennially your hills are filled with birds.

Green hills, the deep mosses around your temples.

They, the birds, are your faithful ones.

As I am, naturally.

Faithful to a world unknown,

a world for us alone, paper-thin, and too fragile to speak of.