by Li-Young Lee
Ivy ties the cellar door
in autumn, in summer morning glory
wraps the ribs of a mouse.
Love binds me to the one
whose hair I've found in my mouth,
whose sleeping head I kiss,
wondering is it death?
beauty? this dark
star spreading in every direction from the crown of her head.
My love's hair is autumn hair, there
the sun ripens.
My fingers harvest the dark
vegtable of her body.
In the morning I remove it
from my tongue and
sleep again.
Hair spills
through my dream, sprouts
from my stomach, thickens my heart,
and tangles from the brain. Hair ties the tongue dumb.
Hair ascends the tree
of my childhood--the willow
I climbed
one bare foot and hand at a time,
feeling the knuckles of the gnarled tree, hearing
my father plead from his window, _Don't fall!_
In my dream I fly
past summers and moths,
to the thistle
caught in my mother's hair, the purple one
I touched and bled for,
to myself at three, sleeping
beside her, waking with her hair in my mouth.
Along a slippery twine of her black hair
my mother ties ko-tze knots for me:
fish and lion heads, chrysanthemum buds, the heads
of Chinamen, black-haired and frowning.
Li-En, my brother, frowns when he sleeps.
I push back his hair, stroke his brow.
His hairline is our father's, three peaks pointing down.
What sprouts from the body
and touches the body?
What filters sunlight
and drinks moonlight?
Where have I misplaced my heart?
What stops wheels and great machines?
What tangles in the bough
and snaps the loom?
Out of the grave
my father's hair
bursts. A strand
pierces my left sole, shoots
up bone, past ribs,
to the broken heart it stiches,
then down,
swirling in the stomach, in the groin, and down,
through the right foot.
What binds me to this earth?
What remembers the dead
and grows towards them?
I'm tired of thinking.
I long to taste the world with a kiss.
I long to fly into hair with kisses and weeping,
remembering an afternoon
when, kissing my sleeping father, I saw for the first time
behind the thick swirl of his black hair,
the mole of wisdom,
a lone planet spinning slowly.
Sometimes my love is melancholy
and I hold her head in my hands.
Sometimes I recall our hair grows after death.
Then, I must grab handfuls
of her hair, and, I tell you, there
are apples, walnuts, ships sailing, ships docking, and men
taking off their boots, their hearts breaking,
not knowing
which they love more, the water, or
their women's hair, sprouting from the head, rushing toward the feet.
Reality
Lies bind this house
In morning, at night lust
Envelops these cold sheets.
Need ensnares her to him
Whose steps echo on tile not swept,
Whose hands caress
Contemplating reality?
Fantasy? This freckled
Skin covering his bones and beautiful entirety.
Her monsters skin is morning skit, there
The wounds fester
Her mouth heals the ragged
Massacre of his chest.
In the night he leaves her
And her house to
Live again.
Skin slinks into her thoughts, spreading
To her hands, covering fingers,
And stretches from her wrist, skin encases her mind.
Skin attacks the earth
Of her world- the plants
She grew
One green stalk and stem at a time
Feeling the flesh of the earth, listening
For a whisper from its mouth, help us!
In her days she floats
Past people and places
To the house
Captured in life’s brutal skin, the small ones
She aches and whishes for,
To her self at twenty, walking
Near them, keeping their skin under her nails
Along a new stretch of pale skin
The birds make nests for her:
Small and large. Oval pods. Full of
Fur and wool, soft and inviting.
The fox, her sister, chatters when she gathers
She brushes her skin, over the fur
Her skin is like the birds, there for a purpose
What covers the muscle
And shelters the heart
What glows at night
And darkens in the sun?
Where did she leave her mind?
What breaks and tears the earth?
What collects men
And kills their faith?
Our of the sky
The birds skin
Escapes. A feather
Lands on her hand, filters
Down stomach, past heart,
To severed wings it heals,
Then up,
Encircling shoulders, and heard, and up
Past her ear.
What lets her disappear?
What sets flight
To her thoughts and theory’s?
She is annoyed of dreaming.
She envies the people laughing.
She envies the skin of golden tones,
Needing a utopia
Where, laughing with a different one, she realized
Under his imperfect skin
A seed of wholeness
Was growing quickly
Sometimes her life is wrong
And she fumbles with the words.
Sometimes she realizes she is alone.
Then, she must feel
In another’s skin, she believes
Are wonders, miracles, laughter, sunlight, and him
Coming through the door, his world closing.
Not comprehending
Which he wants more, the world, or
Her skin, as it shifts over muscle and encompasses his body
