I wait for you on top of a moving train with my clothes flying into freedom and the conductor waving at me with a smile on his frank face where a thin moustache can be seen
I wait for you soaked in white milk, like the bride of the faraway Levant where oak trees produce heavy shadows and offer you the comfort of their thick hug, scratching your skin like a rough but very caring lover
I wait for you licking the honeycomb without being afraid of the cutting sting of the bees and the harsh reprehension of the Queen Mother I wait for you with my face stuffed under the water holding my respiration until I can no longer remember the clarity of my breathing lungs
I wait for you with my face stuffed under the water holding my respiration until I can no longer remember the clarity of my breathing lungs
I wait for you staring at the empty wall where only the passage of the old cockroach has left her dying mark I wait for you when I cross my legs and hold my desire in I wait for you in the middle of the dark road holding a bright torch and waving at the trucks racing by
I wait for you while I take a long bath and move my hands through the channel that runs between my large breasts with the shape of long pears trying to kiss the floor and leave the tree that gave them life and milk all these years I wait for you while I dress myself up for the feast tomorrow when the church bell will toll the tolling of All Saints Day
I wait for you in the intervals of my heart beats while my blood decides which direction to go to give me life I wait for you when you are not looking or when you move seats and become distracted by your own task I wait for you in the shadow of the handrail or the cracks of the pot where I keep my bathing salts or the lotions for my body
I wait for you by the grave of my grandfathers, whom I never met, kneeling down and praying so that I can see their memory I wait for you in the bottle of pills I think about taking but then decide not to, or in the sharp knife I lean meditatively against my right pulse just above the full decided vein that carries liquid to the many parts of my body, that great vessel that travels thick and deep and fast to my encounter
I wait for you perched on a jacaranda naked tree in the heights of the South African winter looking down and seeing the flock of stunning flamingo birds, pink in their full existence and blazing the spring skies
I wait for you in the middle of cold Lusitanian Februaries when my father helps deliver little cows, cows that come out all bloody and full of plasma wound
I wait for you lying naked on the large road with arms open and feet brought together like a Christ-ess pinned to the Cross with blood leaving my body and entering the arteries of the world
I wait for you like this—such is the persistence, the patience, of my love
— Irene Marques, Sample poem from the collection The Circular Incantation: An Exercise in Loss and Findings (Guernica Editions, 2013) https://www.guernicaeditions.com/title/9781550717358; https://www.amazon.ca/Circular-Incantation-Exercise-Loss-Findings/dp/1550717359