A Sabbath Poem (Stern)

CHARCOAL
~ by Sarah Stern

Find a place where your line
wants to take a journey,

where the leaf pushes
up against the window,

some curve in any direction
in the moment after sex

before the air around you settles
and the language names,

a place where skin meets light,
meets shadow, mother's mouth,

young, in the camera
as if she knew what you would become.

Let your hand tell you--
begin there, on the boat,

the woman leaning over the deck,
looking.

(from This Full Green Hour, Sonopo Press, 2008)

Thank you Alvin Poblacion for introducing us
to Sarah Stern and this anthology.