For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth.
William Blake
Photo by Sara Hanif
Otter
I shine like a hairless fish,
or a tongue, but this is my pelt,
enclosing a secret's cunning--
winters in dark surf have given me
the silhouette of a wave rising
or just-spent, and the cold ocean
utters me like a whisper.
The sand-shark
cannot catch me. The rip-fanged moray
I leave behind, and your gaze, too,
is always tardy as you call
to your companions, aim the camera,
steady the binoculars for
another look. In my
better-than-hands the stone-shelled mollusc
is a morsel, and I pluck the flashing sand-dab
from her fathoms. I'm that name
you can't remember, the language you forgot,
the hope you knew would never come,
tide departing to return.
Otter first appeared in Commonweal Magazine--
and the poem will be in the new collection of animal poems
Kingdom, coming Fall 2018
Friendship is prayer.
Photo: Sara Hanif.
Detail art by Frank Jones from The Cities We Will Never See,
my poems from this and parallel worlds.
Glass Eye
We lived in the cottage by the river
where it stood like milk
with the smell of town. Mornings
were the frying of smelt,
the little knives with eyes,
and my aunt and my mother and my sisters
chattered, buttering toast.
There were butterflies in the wallpaper
and my uncle would join us.
He had lost it
when a rifle burst. Snipers
had called to him from high trees.
He would descend
with his tie and vest and cufflinks,
smelling of aftershave and smiling,
looking at us with both eyes.
This poem appears in By Evening, winner of the Owl Creek book award,
copyright © 1992 Michael Cadnum
Glasauge
Wir lebten am Fluss im Häuschen,
darauf der Geruch der Stadt wie
abgestandene Milch. Morgende
mit gebratenen Stinten,
die kleinen Messer mit Rost,
und meine Tante und meine Mutter und
meine Schwestern
schwätzten, schmierten Brote.
Es gab Schmetterlinge auf der Tapete,
und dann kam mein Onkel hinzu.
Durch eine Gewehrsalve
hatte er es verloren. Heckenschützen
hatten aus Baumwipfeln auf ihn gezielt.
Er kam herunter mit
Krawatte, Weste und Manschettenknöpfen,
mit dem Geruch von Rasierwasser und lächelnd
schaute er uns mit beiden Augen an.
Translation of Glass Eye into German by Elke of Celle
Let me be the colors you see
when you close your eyes.
Photo: Sara Hanif
Night does not end, but it does depart.
Photo: Sara Hanif.
Frankie & Johnny
Lick the truth like a
smoke, light sleeper,
run like
mercury down
cracks in hours, quick
as the first man to
touch an honest woman.
Bad to the teeth you
shoot cuffs on the
clean eternal street,
run like gun oil down the
leathery earth while
all these nights in the
back streets
Frankie cries
Michael Cadnum
copyright © 1976, 2018 Michael Cadnum