The Balcony

Magic lanterns are up there
behind that balcony’s potted forest.
In the daytime you knew it to be

a facade of designer lines and whitewash.
All that heavy greenness
spilling over the seventh floor

felt as if it were planted immovably
to prevent signals from getting out
or in. But look at it now

every gust a revelation
that the massed plants are powerless to resist.
A shell is being broken out of

bits of history being flung aside.
An opening on the walls of night
a directive flashed in code:

you will have to learn if it can be deciphered.
With the wind falling
there isn’t much time for this. Already

stillness is taking hold.
The silent leaves are plastering the cracks.
The balcony is being gagged.

Migraciones

in continuum Gloria Gervitz

She reveals that in her 60s
she was newly loved and fell in love
so she moved to be with him
across a tough border.
All her life had been on this side.

After the reading she speaks
wonderingly about the move.
But it should surprise no one
least of all herself. Frontiers
are her lifework.

All women she is all crossings.
She roams translated pages
with an orphan’s freedom.
A hybrid past is in the present
dead women come alive

the market place is teeming
and sex is pleasurable
even without a partner.
All things naked and inviolate
are in the poem with you.

balconyFreedom Issue 2024Independence Daypoem