City of Drawers

CITY OF DRAWERS


              your foot stopped by
            a protrusion in the street
              you stoop to open a drawer

              that house at the end
           it's built of stone
             even the floors the ceilings
            the furniture and when
          you pull out the drawers
                in the old rolltop desk
        they brim with water
            slices of a green ocean
        stretched to a far horizon

              in each drawer a photograph
             the picture of a photo afloat
           in the water of an open drawer
          holds the floating image of
             an identical drawer smaller
             and smaller to infinity

        collapsed umbrellas lie
        at the foot of a stone stair
            on the drenched street
          pagodas crumbling
               in the final flood
              of the floating world

           the wives of nightfall
          tiptoe barefoot over
            a haunted face drowned

                in the waters of Bruges

        a thousand gaslit mysteries
             a dwarf lost in the cellar
              banging his stick on
            a hollow turtle shell till
              he smashes it to pieces

       

ERIC BASSO, USA

 April 11, 2013