Only Now

Now spacious as a forest

I fit in this tiny room

among the sky’s other voices

Now I cry out with the scream

of a hawk heralding a storm

Is it possible,

the silent heart

of  a yellow rose?

Whose smile becomes my breath?

Whose heart is this?

These narrow days pass

stripped of barren confinement

clean of clown’s make-up

Whose thirst savors what happens today 

like a first swallow of milk

or a last sip of water?

Now I taste you

in ripe papaya and the gravel of vodka

paving the back of my throat, in goat stew,

in rabbit and beer

now I walk alone in cities housing

your face in the eyes of the poor

I make good bread for whoever comes

Only now

shaken with joy,

a coin in your purse.