after Shikibu
Your morning
glories are beautiful
to look at in this photograph.
Beautiful is how I remember them.
And I think a man who grows morning glories
because he loves their beautifulness, must be a beautiful man.
Here. I want to make a gift of this fan. Write my name on it for you
to place in this man’s house of yours. Perhaps to stake I’ve been here.
Only a fan. Not a glass shoe. Not a pomegranate seed. Not a coffee
cup or key. You’ll smooth the sheets. Punch the bruised pillows
when I’m gone. It will be as it was before. Mundo sin fin.
The silences again tugged taut as linen.
Perhaps another will pluck this fan with
its clatter of courtrooms and pianos.
Wonder who I am.