The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Today on Nerve's TV blog: Dance, Hipster, Dance! Plus: our latest NewsCrush — and why one army brat is breaking up with Army Wives.
POETRY
posted 5/30/2003
But I wondered if, afterwards, the willow trees would still be
as lovely as they were, full of insect secrets and of the shimmering
and long-haired seraphs coupling with tremulous violins.
Would the flesh of mangoes still reveal the mating
of anemones? I too wanted to rock in waves that way, to grasp
kelp as if a sea-horse with its tail. You see, I kept espying
god among reflections in grass, variations of stone
formations, the glistening sex of splayed summer
leaves, so many notes and letters — the tattering
of all correspondences lost to breath — and lightning
bugs among so many different idols and flickerings, please undress
me now and like a lily. In the morning, I know, I’ve rehearsed
this before (learnt it, in fact, by heart), we’ll only be left
with want; when the pill box is spilled,
when the after-rain mushroom’s hood unpuckers from her stalk,
when the candle’s wax has relaxed its rivuleting course, when the bee's
sting can no longer choose among so many unvirgining flowers, I will part
your curtains, open your door so uneasily.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jenny Boully was born in Thailand, reared in Texas, and now lives in
Brooklyn. Her book The Body is available from Slope Editions. Her
work has been included in The Best American Poetry 2002, The Next
American Essay, and Great American Prose Poems.
