print previewback GENTRIS L. JOINTE
The Other Side
because I am not a man or a poet or a leaf
but a wounded pulse that probes the things of the other side
—by Federico García Lorca
Morning. The private life. The other side
of the bed kept cool. The window
still open, still an oppression. Rain
has chiseled paint from the windowsill.
What’s underneath resembles the body
of an ant. Only a moment is given
to transcribe this ruin, so what to describe? That world
of rust and off-white sheen, how
the paint chips fall, make odd shapes on the grass?
Or, the company of sky, the throat
of a songbird, the silence that settles around
a voice, the lone tree in the yard: wet, luminous. 
The Other Side
Waiting for the Diverted Trolley at 40th & Market St.