BPR 50 | 2023
A brain, a tree heart,
the cellular meltings
of a galaxy, a fly’s wing,
a torpedo’s bubbly void,
a moiré dress shifting,
leaf, ear, onion, fist,
blood’s canopy, rolled newspaper,
a knot of hair, a dozing
cat-o’-nine-tails, a ring
of cigar ash, grasses
on the river, a face diluted
on a concave, marble’s calcium strings,
a snake nest, an astrolabe,
smoke writing or clenching,
a pineapple’s crown, estuary
sand settling like pastry shells,
run-on opalescences, hamburger,
the acrobatics of streaks on glass,
geology’s veils, a rippling pond,
a disemboweled wire, a bowl of pasta,
a peacock feather, cloud fronds,
the citadel of a car engine,
a star-of-Bethlehem, a bouquet
of cathodes and filaments,
squid embracing, genes,
an agate word, combed sand,
the lace of oil on water,
plywood, a terraced slope,
he penmanship of dance,
watermarks, a vortex of moss,
the ways of meaning, wet fur,
fire’s filigree, a plowman’s world,
an artichoke halved, a nautilus echo,
a deck of handkerchiefs arching
like papyrus heads, the mother-of-pearl
undulations of a porch screen,
brushstrokes, climate mapped
from a satellite, a labyrinth,
this thumb against the pane—
the face of touch—
on the first morning of spring.
from Bread of the Imagined (Bilingual Review Press, 1992)
first appeared in The Missouri Review
All of Ricardo Pau-Llosa's works featured in Issue 50 can be read/downloaded in PDF format