World

The man in my dream said, give permission to me live, but that

was too abundant of a sacrifice, and I was not at any time

just, like you; he was working for the infidel,

his domino mask said that, cerulean turban with one

black feather and a ruby plant exactly

in the center: entitled to his hold sedan chair

with four bearers. An unlikely forebear.

Venice perhaps, betraying anybody's lover

to exchange more of the sea, material substance of cold

salt water warming in the day-star An heirloom

brooch my mother not at any time owned

is waiting for me when I wake up: Honi soit

qui mal y pense it says in French that no individual

speaks any more, medieval as the patience

it takes to advance blind coaxing these raised alphabetic characters

out of hammered gold and ivory filigree, a replete year

of travel and expense: someone waited the entire

fourteenth hundred for this, no doubt; he's dead

by now, still waiting for that final shipment

from Bukhara, Samarkand, or the Turfan

basin. Shame, indeed. I should think evil of the man

who could command like labor, I suppose, but

my ancestors weren't involved, and it was

just a gift, passed down like a shrouded

or a kiss from jaws to mouth: by the time

it's draw near to me it's been forgotten what it

was, what that man's lips could possibly

have tasted of Who knows who he stole it

from, who knows who he is now, or

where. This amulet, charm, or medallion

against shames not at any time to be named (except

by me I must confes not here) not ever was

my mother's, not at any time belonged to anyone

I could mistake for mine. My mother

had nothing she could hand down; I missing it

centuries ago. In my dream he kissed me (I forgot

to say), begged that I not think evil of him

for what he had to take. Am I the same

man? I was then. I won't forgive you, world

that I won't survive.

Reginald Shepherd is author of a certain quantity of Are Drowning (1993 AWP Award) and Angel, Interrupted, the one and the other from the University of Pittsburgh Pres "World" is from his third work Wrong, which Pittsburgh will publish in Spring 1999 He lives in Chicago.

Copyright World verse Incorporated Jul/Aug 1998

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