Thursday, May 18, 2023

takahashi poem

OX AND SLEET


 When an ox, sleet covered my horns

 And, like a bird on a TV antenna,

 A rock lodged on the tip of my tongue.

 Wind swirls the globe, and there's

 A Catholic Sister who, in her white wimple,

 Resembles an ox's hoof (the universe

 Wavers in the nest of the ox's nose).


 When a deer, a maple grew from my leg?—

 Now whether something's there or not,

 What difference? A thing lies neither

 Sidelong nor lengthwise, after all,

 And this woman breathes life into the universe:

 In one breath an ox became a deer.