Stephanie Berger
NOTHINGLAND
Enter the landscape like
A bride when they gasp
Pretend it is your beauty
They are gasping at
When they cry pretend
It is your love
Entering
The gorge like a groom
And you wait
For a long time
For the river to rush into you
On the bluffs
Above the crag
Of your soul
I am trying to capture
The magic of discovering
A pomegranate tree
Where there was none
I am trying to give up
The notion of likeness
Altogether I laid down
In the lagoon
Like a straight flush
Like a child bride
So baroque
She was the end of art
Flaunting and squandering
Its resources
Now she keeps
A little blue dream on a shelf
Like a bottle of brandy
Visions of the infernal
Feminine surging inside
You drove a painting
Of a bright blue truck
Through a hail storm
In my head now my heart
Is a canoe in the middle of a lake
With no paddles
With nothing commercial
In her appearance
She was a gleaming
Toy of history
A luxury of literature
The voices of two men
Chattering ominously in the distance
The echoes made tantalizing
By their shortcomings
Who are you
When no one is watching?
How is a canyon
Like a writing desk?
They both blow smoke
Oh gentle fire
I am waiting to be blown
In some direction the way
The shadow of the shower
Head at work
Resembles a jellyfish
So too does my own head
Work generically gypsy
She grew weary
Of preparation
And connection
And illustration
Of trying to screw up
The courage to fall
Into his soft funereal hands
It's all a surface
Grief so shallow
You might enjoy it in time
I hope to think
Aphoristically
Aristocratically
Dear me, am I walking?
I suppose I must be
I am learning
To be lively
To stimulate
My appetite
How did I come
To such a deep knowledge
Of pleasure?
Through a deep pleasure
In knowledge
The Greeks called
An unmarried woman
An anecdote
The definition of which
Is not yet set
In print she was about to draw
The lines out on her thighs
And on the sheets
And multiply and divide herself
By a broad-chested body
Of water by a stroke
Of exquisite simplicity
And singleness
Of heart she wandered
Until a honey-colored moon
Appeared overhead