Superposition
i.
Your hands are two doves
spiraling and swooping
over my shoulders. Tonight
grass whistles with wind.
The blades lap against each other.
On the other side of the world,
someone is kissing her lover goodnight
for the last time.
ii.
She kisses his leathered face
until he drifts to visions.
Later she wakes, hearing a sound like
a vulture having lost
a nest full of new eggs.
Outside the door,
an army lifts the weapons
we have paid for.
A silver pebble slices the air
like a sleek animal.
iii.
If the cat is both alive and dead
inside of the box, as you
have explained, then what about
those blurry places? Alive like wind
or like feathers, dead like a fossil,
a forgotten song? The last time I heard
your voice it was a leaf,
stemless, somewhere between
paper and firewood. It was a tree,
dampened for me,
embroidered with ants.
This cat should teach us how
to fly in fearlessness,
not knowing when it will be alive,
not knowing when it will be dead.
iv.
We drive past the cornfields
swaying gray in September light.
A flutter of white-throated sparrows
digs between the crumpled rows.
Your palms are brown lizards
perched on the steering wheel. They speak
with the sharp tooth of silence.
This is how we loved:
subcutaneously, without apology.
We accelerate and inch the breath
from our drummed stomachs,
nearing the destination.
I can see it on a green sign.
This is how we war: carelessly,
without even knowing.
- Cecelia Galarraga