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A black biplane crashes through the window of the luncheonette. The pilot climbs down, removing his leather hood. He hands me my grandmother's jade ring. No, it is two robin's eggs and a telephone number: yours.
From The Caged Owl: New and Selected Poems by Gregory Orr. Copyright © 2002 by Gregory Orr. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press. All rights reserved.
The world seems so palpable
And dense: people and things
And the landscapes
They inhabit or move through.
Words, on the other hand,
Are so abstract—they’re
Made of empty air
Or black scratches on a page
That urge us to utter
Certain sounds.
And us:
Poised in the middle, aware
Of the objects out there
Waiting patiently to be named,
As if the right words
Could save them.
And don’t
They deserve it?I know now the beloved Has no fixed abode, That each body She inhabits Is only a temporary Home. That she Casts off forms As eagerly As lovers shed clothes. I accept that he's Just passing through That flower Or that stone. And yet, it makes Me dizzy— The way he hides In the flow of it, The way she shifts In fluid motions, Becoming other things. I want to stop him— If only briefly. I want to lure her To the surface And catch her In this net of words.
A house just like his mother’s, But made of words. Everything he could remember Inside it: Parrots and a bowl Of peaches, and the bright rug His grandmother wove. Shadows also—mysteries And secrets. Corridors Only ghosts patrol. And did I mention Strawberry jam and toast? Did I mention That everyone he loved Lives there now, In that poem He called “My Mother’s House?”