180 Your friend had given me a picture of you. You look estranged, As if your face -- a fragment of a Hellenistic vessel -- Is pasted randomly upon its glossy paper -- vexed not, Not waved away, but taken out of the time and space, restrained In overflowing self-containment, as if your eyes are drawn On clay -- the eyes that can be granted only to spectators, With lips that can be granted only to a gourmet tasting His life in bits and not devouring it. Your repose preserves The wholesomeness of amphora; and concealed inside, confined, You are a prisoner, a victim of a spell, an outlier. I see how restlessly you toss behind your hardened quietude. I know you feel my eyes.







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IRENE CÆSAR
Confined Verse
Collected Poems

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