Geoffrey Brock

1. DELIRIUM, AFTER RIMBAUD How many hours I kept that vigil by your side— entire nights, eyes wide, as you so sweetly slept. What I was wondering: why you yearned to evade the real. No one has prayed harder for anything. It wasn’t for your life I feared, but for mankind. Did you, in the end, find secrets for changing life? 2. DEFACED, AFTER RILKE The head we cannot know, nor its bright fruit, the eyes. And yet the body has its gaze: a lamp turned low. Or else the breast would cease to dazzle, the hips fail to curve into that smile that begets more than a kiss. And flesh would lose all life, not flare till there’s no blind it can’t see you behind. You must change your life. 3. DENIAL, AFTER SEFERIS The afternoon grew hotter along our secret shore. We thirsted in the glare but couldn’t drink the water. On golden sand we traced your name beside the sea. The wind came like a sigh; our writing was erased. How passionate our life, how full of sex and song, spirit and heart—how wrong! And so we changed our life.