Guest Poem by Martyn Crucefix

Martyn Crucefix – Between a Drowning Man will be published by Salt in 2023. Recent publications: Cargo of Limbs (Hercules Editions, 2019); These Numbered Days, poems by Peter Huchel (Shearsman, 2019) won the Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize, 2020. Translations of essays by Lutz Seiler, In Case of Loss, is due from And Other Stories in 2023. A major Rilke Selected will be published by Pushkin Press in 2024. Royal Literary Fund Fellow at The British Library. Blogging at http://www.martyncrucefix.com

‘when’

            when
like a falling flower-print cotton dress
            has dropped its round spoor
                        in the breathy silence on the bedroom floor

            when
like the moment one who has been reading
            instructions on propagation
                        understands and the room blooms with light

            when
like an ascending sun-lit valley mist
            has eaten its way through all appearances
                        to substitute its own luminous idea

            when
like the salt-wetness breaking bounds in my eyes
            in an original participation
                        I lean over and touch what is there

my hand passing through what I thought was there all along

            when
in an instant it is clear all the bridges are down
            how can I speak to anybody about that