Someone posed the question, who is writing poetry today that knows visual art as well as Frank O’Hara. Good question.

from Elegy for my Father by Mark Strand

How long shall I wait for you?
Do not wait for me. I am tired and I want to lie down.
Are you tired and do you want to lie down?
Yes, I am tired and I want to lie down.

THE CINNAMON PEELER by Michael Ondaatje

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
— your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers…

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women

the grasscutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.

And you searched your arms

for the missing perfume.

and knew

what good is it

to be the lime burner’s daughter

left with no trace

as if not spoken to in an act of love

as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler’s wife. Smell me.

lola lemire tostevin, from "For Peter"

vacant mouths gaping on the shelf  sallow skull

of the eastern moon minus its black tongue  bivalve

sunrise unhinged  hollowed red tooth shell  the closing

of their form postponed  (it is because there are empty

spaces we are able to use them)

as a child I believed everything ever said would be heard

again  the slow accretion of every word  every sound

as in the conch my aunt kept against her living room door

when pressed to the ear the far-off roar of an island

a muffled heart  a droning of no song

prayer by bp nichol

teach me song, i
would sing, teach me
love. i would
i were open
to it. teach me
to pray
privately, praise
quietly
those things
i should. show me
the grace
of movement
& touch – that much
i would offer
to her. teach me
more – a way
for me
to reach her
who beckons
hesitantly. teach me
to be sure.