To Marilyn Hacker

I close the book at last, and then my eyes

I also close, to watch the echoes fade:

Old friends departing. Still, to my surprise,

A few remain. They cling like geckoes, splayed

Toes nonchalant to verticality.

But I'm dislodged by all your poetry.

Though likely not your type or even gender,

I'd love to share your table, or your bed,

Then watch you thresh the moment till you render

A tight iambic abstract to be read

By others; knowing you by name, me never,

What could they understand of what had been?

Reality long flown, a poem must sever

A lambent few details from all you've seen.

But oh, to be the beam that merits bending

By that prism,

The image worth reflecting

In that mirror,

The shine so bright it might at last burn paper

Through that lens.

Omega campsite, May 25th-28th 1996
revised June 1997

This poem was a response to reading 3 1/2 books of poetry by poet Marilyn Hacker, back to back. If you want to learn more about her, you can click on the above link, read Samuel R. Delany's autobiography The Motion Of Light In Water, or read her poems yourself. Many of them are online, including:

• untitled ("Note to Elaine the speech pathologist")

• Invocation

• Symbiose II

• Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons, 1995 paperback

• Winter Numbers : Poems, 1994 hardcover or 1996 paperback

• Selected Poems : 1965-1990, 1994 hardcover or 1995 paperback