Wind in a Box

Terrance Hayes

   —after Lorca

I want to always sleep beneath a bright red blanket

of leaves. I want to never wear a coat of ice.

I want to learn to walk without blinking.

I want to outlive the turtle and turtle's father,

the stone. I want a mouth full of permissions

and a pink glistening bud. If the wildflower and ant hill

can return after sleeping each season, I want to walk

out of this house wearing nothing but wind.

I want to greet you, I want to wait for the bus with you

weighing less than a chill. I want to fight off the bolts

of gray lighting the alcoves and winding paths

of your hair. I want to fight off the damp nudgings

of snow. I want to fight off the wind.

I want to be the wind and I want to fight off the wind

with its sagging banner of isolation, its swinging

screen doors, its gilded boxes, and neatly folded pamphlets

of noise. i want to fight off the dull straight lines

of two by fours and endings, your disapprovals,

your doubts and regulations, your carbon copies.

If the locust can abandon its suit,

I want a brand new name. I want the pepper's fury

and the salt's tenderness. I want the virtue

of the evening rain, but not its gossip.

I want the moon's intuition, but not its questions. 

I want the malice of nothing on earth. I want to enter

every room in a strange electrified city

and find you there. I want your lips around the bell of flesh

at the bottom of my ear. I want to be the mirror,

but not the nightstand. I do not want to be the light switch.

I do not want to be the yellow photograph

or book of poems. When I leave this body, Woman,

I want to be a pure flame. I want to be your song.

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