THE PAPER SWAN

by Paul Adler

 

 

Pretend we are not dying
and that the rocking horse
remembers all our laughter
as if to love were always
to be recorded. Families
of stars separate in the sky
and holding you I remember
that all the iron in a human
body can make two small nails.
Two small nails: one for each
wrist, for a pair of paintings,
to seal dual black caskets.
You give me a paper swan,
a dream of movement
as the swan’s shape is itself
the memory of your hands.
Here, here I grip the two
nails of your body like a relic
stolen from some strange past
in which neither of us knew
that we were this fragile,
nor knew the taste of rain.

 

 

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