After Shadows and Silence




©2005 Katherine Williams
"After Shadows and Silence"
appears in Blue Arc West:
An Anthology of California Poets,
Paul Suntup, Dima Hilal, and
Mindy Nettifee, Eds.
Huntington Beach, CA:
Tebot Bach (2006)




The blazon is made of extravagant praise of the beloved's body. Breton’s famous blazon, “Free Union,” is a Surrealist masterpiece, and I think Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 is the cleverest love poem in English. This one sort of turns into a psalm.

whose eyes are the first espresso after customs
whose loins are stacks of firewood in winter
the one whose back is Guernica as it hung in exile
whose mind is an advancing hurricane
whose fingertips are the marimbas of Veracruz
whose tongue is a robe of silk crêpe de chine
the one whose spleen is Paris
whose ears are shiitake mushrooms in hoisin sauce
whose breath is autumn in Appalachia
whose toes are the Moonlight Sonata
whose chest is Vesuvius across the bay
whose shoulders are the rumor of armistice
whose gaze cascades the canyon between us
the one whose voice is perdition