SELECTIONS FROM THE BOOK: 


The Mermaid's Reply to J. Alfred Prufrock

           Let us go then, you and I
           When the moon is high in the sky
           Like an eye wide with delight.

           Let us walk upon white shores
           Buffeted by restless seas,
           Waves which flood you
           With an overwhelming question.
           Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
           Let us go and make our visit.

           In the room the men are talking low
           Of the women who come and go.

           The phosphorescent coral lights
           A question to the blank sky.
           And indeed there will be time
           To create a boneshell cage
           A house for your hunger to
           Greet the hunger that you meet.

           In the room the men are talking low
           Of the women who come and go.

           And indeed there will be time
           To urge you, urge you to dare,
           but time, also, to see you
           Knot your fists in your hair...
           In a minute there is time
           For the essence of possibility
           To vanish in an instant.

           Oh, I have known them all already, known them all--
           The mendicant beachcombers cursing
           The reticence of the lip of shore
           And the sheer thrust of coursing wave, both.

           And I have known the eyes already, known them all-
           Eyes that let me see to the prurient bottom, bare
           (but beneath the moon, glazing over with a hard stare!)

           Is it the memory of his flight
           Which calls forth all my spite?
           And how should I begin?
           And why should I presume?

           Shall I say I have been
           In the bowels of convention
           And watched Pride choke on its own desire?

           I am the song that answers itself,
           Borne lightly on the swallowing sea.

           You sleep so peacefully!
           Should I, heeding Dionysus,
           Elucidate and then impersonate the crisis?
           I am a priestess; the greatness of the matter is
           There is never a seizure of momentum
           When fear clutches at my ribs and then folds up.

           It is worth it to say
           I bear witness, I believe
           Though they have all said,
           "Finally, you know, this is meaningless."

           I am no Ophelia
           Though they would have me be.
           I've been to the nunnery;
           Rutted and worshipped at the altar of Love,
           Always with courage to play the fool.

           I grow young ... I grow young...
           I shall reinvent the world with my tongue.

           Darling, grow your hair past your shoulders
           Or shave it off.
           Eat cherry after cherry and then eat a plum.
           Wear trousers slit to show beneath
           A tiny crescent of naked peachflesh.

           When I sing, my voice marries the air
           Which is to say,
           If some thread of melody carries and reaches,
           Quickens you on the narrow strip of this beach,
           Darling, I am always singing.  Listen.





      Bewilderment


           Is amazing    to be thrust into a
           Gravid forest and seized with
           Green knowings    the nerves
           Not pinioned to anything but a
           Pulse cantering soft in the throat

           It nickers against my face with
           Mint and fennel breath   coltish
           All eager and unknowing limbs
           Splayed in tall grass

           I relish this injunction to be
           Wild and wilder     to throw off
           What is known and have all
           Clamber into my arms hungry
           And confiding have    all
           Drift into my breath like dawn    all
           Gallop into me clatter and hoof
           Burst its blossoms tendril and seed
           Give me everything as it is
           A slow gong of astonishment
           Sounding its blandishments
           Tousled breezes      fierce confusions
           Bemused leanings     vague wanderings
           Clenched and unclenching diastole and systole
           I will stand in them
           All pliant and
           Exultant as a sapling




     What I Want


       Wanting is a wound happy enough
       To bleed into its own mouth.
       I want to be white but
       I was born a red penance, a sweet stain
       Which speaks ten dead languages,
       Tap dances before strangers like
       A jigger of venom which
       Erases its own raw face.
       I want to stop living like a scab:
       Hard, shiny, born around a hurt.

       I want my open palms
       To be dashed with blue, calm.

       I want to learn how to receive
       With no shackles of acceptance
       Jailing my heart.

       I want people to untangle in
       The sharp, sticky briar patch of my voice.

       I want to scale myself to daring new chromatics.

       I want to diffuse into this world like mist.
       I want to plant my roots in lava
       And throw sparks heavenward.
       I want new language like fire.
       I want to live like a torch.
       I want to be neat as a Japanese rock garden and
       Lush as a rainforest.
       I want to mend   I want to break   I want to bend.
       I want to know what it's like to be a daisy.
       I want the soft, scarred part of me understood
       Without apology or apotheosis.
       I want desire and decision
       To recreate me, daily.





        Litany of the Inconsolable



        If I could bleed like a straight line into the
        Horizon which blinks into swallowing dark
     
        If I could accept    if I could open my arms
        Wide     if I could stand unflinching

        If I could unclench fit in my own pocket
        If I could pay attention

        If needs didn't cram my throat with
        Fistfuls of    choked air

        If I could stay breathless
        In the bare     jugular dark

        If needs could be struck like flint
        Flaming     put to use

        If I could step into the ventricular sun
        Recast my shadow

        If I could eat my past
        Furrow it for planting

        If I could ease the urgent now
        Into this heart     so long untenanted

        If I could mentor my kaleidoscope eye
        Leave what I see unresolved

        If I could run away like rain
        Vanish into a green plinth of ether

        If my smile was not ragged
        Too torn to wear



          How to Love a Poet



       This is the way I am
       Waiting for you:
       Making silk from my guts
       As a matter of course.
       There is only patient, daily construction:
       Flinging out my substance in lambent threads.
       Tomorrow I tear down these connections and
       Spin my tenuous place again.
       Meanwhile, dexterity might lure you.
       You might admire the loom I am,
       You might see my weaving make
       A tightrope or a net.
       If, in these delicate acrobatics
       You note some grisly, vital grace,
       Come closer.





               --By Magdalena Alagna