Ahlberg, Allan   |   Ahvenjärvi, Juhani   |   Angelou, Maya   |   Bakhtiar, Shireen   |   Beatty, Paul   |   Boland, Eavan   |   Brooks, Gwendolyn   |   Brown, Sterling   |   Bryant, Dana   |   Chapman, Tracy   |   Clifton Read, Lucile   |   Coleman, Anita Scott   |   Coleman, Wanda   |   Cullun, Countee   |   Dashiell, J.M.   |   Dove, Rita   |   Dylan, Bob   |   Evans, Mari   |   Gaines, Reg E.   |   Giovanni, Nikki   |   Goldbarth, Albert   |   Harper, Michael   |   Hayden, Chris   |   Hayden, Robert   |   Jordan, June   |   Lorde, Audre   |   Madhubuti, Haki R.   |   Mc Kenty, Bob   |   Moore, Richard   |   Reed, Ishmael   |   Salt'n'Pepa   |   Sayar, Keyvan   |   Scott-Heron, Gill   |   Shakur, Tupac   |   Sinervo, Helena   |   Stevens, Cat   |   Teasdale, Sarah   |   The Sugarhill Gang   |   Walcott, Derek   |   Walker, Alice   |   Walker, Margaret   |   Williams, Saul   |   Wyclef Jean   |   Young, Al

Boland, Eavan

A woman painted on a leaf


I found it among curios and silver
in the pureness of wintry light.

A woman painted on a leaf.

Fine lines drawn on a veined surface
in a hand-made frame.

This is not my face. Neither did I draw it.

A leaf falls in the garden.
The moon cools its aftermath of sap.
The pith of summer dries out in starlight.

A woman is inscribed there.

This is not death. It is the terrible
suspension of life.

I want a poem
I can grow old in. I want a poem I can die in.

I want to take
this dried-out face,
as you take a starling from behind iron,
and return it to its elements of air, of ending-

so that Autumn
which was once
the hard look of stars,
the frown on a gardener's face,
a gradual bronzing of the distance,

will be,
from now on,
a crisp tinder underfoot. Cheekbones. Eyes. Will be
a mouth crying out. Let me.

Let me die.