When It Is Blue: Her new body: built now for water-- / sleek, streamlined--

And another Stangeland poem.  

(Joannie Stangeland & myself, being Sarah Sarai, will be reading, along with the New York/Parisian poet Margo Berdeshevsky, on Monday, March 12, 2012 at the Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village.  6 p.m.)


See yesterday's post, here, to read Joannie's "A Good Day (for a Miracle)."

When It Is Blue

First she found a lump no bigger than a pea
or a preposition—a small verb: to be.

The danger lies in conjugation
and the tenses—

is, are, would, could.
Will. She kept the will, a world.

I will, we will.
A synonym for tomorrow.

The shape of here is loss,
or a trade—flesh for life.

Her new body: built now for water—
sleek, streamlined—

a seal or a porpoise
(think of dolphins around the bow

as a schooner races along the coast
and the sails are full).

The wind makes a web on the water.
The body makes a plot.

The pain makes her tired. When
it is blue, the sky makes her sharp.
_____
Joannie Stangeland, 2011