- KEVIN BROPHY
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From Moments, Years
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- She did not even understand washing
machines, he said.
- Put this moment under your tongue and do
not let it speak.
- The good medicine of it will dissolve
into you
- as each day does to fill you with the
hope
- that a time for small excursions will
arrive.
- Freedom too demands routines.
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- At least, he said, she could
drive a car.
- When you slide beneath the brittle water
- go all the way to the tiles.
- Their blank existence tells us everything
again.
- Put this moment under your skin, let it
burn there.
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- She was a saint with her husband, yes.
- With this moment under your tongue,
- silent pillow beneath your ear,
- let the world like a prison close over
you;
- your hand, put it out into the dark
- where it will touch the last curving
breath of someone’s body,
- the shared sleeping nerve of desire.
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- Even in prison, he said, each
year I gave myself four weeks leave.
- With these years pressed beneath your
tongue
- you know you have done what has been
prescribed.
- You do not waste words on words.
- Keep this moment, tongue,
- it is your child, the one who will tear
herself from you.
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