why I’m the oldest recipient of your on-again, off-again love.

Annabel Mehran

Sky-Meaning I
by Edip Cansever translated by Julia Clare Tillinghast and Richard Tillinghast

No matter the time or place, I’ll always grow for the one who is the sea.
With one thin finger cut in half.
That is why I’m the oldest recipient of your on-again, off-again love.
And that is why I grew up in the desert, with nothing but a single slice of sweet melon.

I’ve made you into a cure, I’ve emulated you.
I’ve torn up some of my poems, and procured new ones.

And if I’ve passed too quickly from one situation to the next—
Not because of blood, not fatally—but through a kind of companionability,
Now, at last, I’m the strength there is in numbers.
It’s just a memory, if I clam up, looking at my finger-stub.

As I open my eyes, you’re the sun hung out on the line.
You’re a blue child, you’re our love
Peering out at me from the middle of a blue warehouse.

+ Madeleine Peyroux: Blue Alert (live)