Naxos

Nothing consummates an idyll
like abandonment.

Zoom back. A marvel then,
to be here with you.
Nude like fruit, and motiveless.

The gray-leaved olive trees outside seem like
young women: small, light, exciting.

I love you, I wish there was some more
original way of saying it.

We drink our bitter coffees on the terrace.
And the little dark stone
of work that secures me, where is it?

Millions of hard stars flood the sky
each night, gentle wording
defending mystery.

My own timidity, pale as meal,
will turn out to hold some ruthlessness, too.

I draw a line down the middle
of my life—
that’s my night now, that’s my day.

Each day the sea is blue, then amber,
then burning red; it declares love, it takes it back.

Sandra Lim (2021)

In 2021, I read Sandra Lim’s The Curious Thing and I actually didn’t like it. I don’t remember why. Maybe I thought the language was too cloy, too simple? I don’t know, the poems just didn’t resonate with me at the time. Last week, I decided to give the collection another try and I’m really glad I did. The book is full of things I love: eros, lyricism, philosophical contemplation. Lim has lots to say about romance and desire, but her aesthetic hand is far from cloying. Silly of me to have thought that! Thank god for changing tastes!

Things I’ve been liking:

• Speaking of changing tastes… Another book I've been enjoying is Anahid Nersessian’s Keats’s Ode: A Lover’s Discourse which is a book of poetry criticism focused on — as the title implies — the odes of John Keats. Admittedly, this is a bit of a nerdy one and I was hesitant to pick it up, but Nersessian’s ideas are captivating, and she’s convincing me to spend more time with the long-dead poets I usually avoid. Here’s an excerpt of her comparing Keats to Karl Marx:

  

• Richard Linklater’s film, Slacker. It’s slow, plotless, and full of eccentric characters. It’s kind of a slog at certain points, but it made me nostalgic for my slower-paced days walking around Austin.

• This Kanye West Sunday Service performance. So good!