Not This

American Poetry Review, The, Mar/Apr 2001 by Curbelo, Silvia

Based on "Hector's Mistress," a photograph by Anna Tomczak.

It's not the way the light haunts that particular landscape, or how clouds

in the distance imitate the world at rest. The way the curtains hold the late

afternoon is not an issue. It's not the lilies abandoned on-the table,

or the dog lying beside her, or the wine. It's not the weight of memory

on his eyelids. It's not the empty cup he carries walking home in the dark

through fields brimming with sleep, or the precarious raft of her

mouth on his, or-her.hands in the evenings

putting cold cream where her youth had been.