Letter to Borges from Syracuse
       

Down where the great tenor must have felt it, under my left-side low rib
There was a green fruit, a pear of the mind, moonlit, cold and wet.

I felt it early, bending to the paper, just a curve
From the torso, a twist

That was not me, do you understand? I called to a bird
In the catalpa, called it bird-wise, soft

But to no effect. I was rich,
Alive, with nowhere to go, fruit from a dream

Hanging where my lungs and diaphragm met.
I wanted to stay there always,

Do you understand? My blindness was just a nuisance.
The pear, an unworldly thing,

Swayed, understand, and grew on nothing.

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Copyright © 2013 Stephen Kuusisto All rights reserved
from Letters to Borges
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission