Elaine Equi

THE FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE

I was looking over your shoulder.

You were looking at yourself in a mirror
like a parakeet practicing dance moves. 

We smiled at each other.
Then you turned around. 

A wall fell down and we smiled again
at the wreckage.

NEROLI BY BRIAN ENO

Ethereal algorithms
drift in the pond
of a perimeter.

What if sounds
were diffused
like fragrance
in the air --  

not leading or following,
just lingering
in a slow dance
of duration
before completely
blending in.

IL BUIO

          for Carla Buranello 

It is sonic
darkness, 

a black hole
in the air,

curved
nowhere 

ghost whistling
in a wind tunnel.

Sometimes liquid,
it glistens,

listening
indifferently 

as if the universe
were a large ear.

LAMENT

O where is the pocketknife
of my youth?

The turtle buried
beneath the house
who carried us on his back?

THE YELLOW NOTEBOOK

Definition

Poetry is the elephant in the blind man’s room.

Obviously

The future changes the past.

Forced happiness

Is bad but forced sadness is worse.

After the rain

Even the shadows look clean --

the white stripe
in the middle
of the street
like toothpaste.

---

Elaine Equi’s latest book is Out of the Blank from Coffee House Press. Her other books include Voice-Over (San Francisco State Poetry Award); Ripple Effect: New & Selected Poems (finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award); and The Intangibles. Widely published and anthologized, her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Brooklyn Rail, Big Other, The Nation, The New Yorker, and many other journals. In 2023, she was the guest editor of the annual anthology, Best American Poetry.