[to héloïse d’argenteuil & peter abélard] & other poems
to héloïse d’argenteuil & peter abélard.
to the bones of the pair, moved more than once afterwards,
preserved even through the vicissitudes of french revolution.
to the bones of the pair now presumed to lay
in the well-known tomb in père lachaise cemetery.
by tradition, lovers or singles leave letters at the feet
in tribute to the letters the couple lettered
across oceans of french wheat, in tourist hope
of finding true love. to the angels waiting
with toothy spears around crypt, to be called back
home again, not feet away from the other sleeping
lovers no one else will write about in greek, nor latin
nor lit moon sky. to the others like us.
to walking side by side through someone else’s graveyard
pondering what will become of us when
summer makes it’s slight lean & the transfer of remains
more the shaking of two hand, keeping true a promise
written out long before any thought of the anti-plague of honey
locust in the air. to the skin of our lovers, that in time will be
brittle as favorite pages in our favorite books, eventually
mirroring each other. turn saliva into ink.
mouth deliver us to the present, to the people i love today
before becoming a stranger’s dark blanket lit by the lamps
of our heads. to the faint wisps of music, guessing orange
plumage rife from another’s time but no less discreet
of the volition of our small lives lived.
to the plains of musashi.
to the teachers living for headlines
of the national enquirer.
to the moon once silver,
but blackened by age,
worn out, you say. it’s sad, you say,
face pressing glass
as close as security will let you
to the fan of grass chuting,
as close as security will let your face
press against the moon
slipping, the crane necks tucked
for flight. to as close as they will let you
press your face to the bowl of peaches, placed there for longevity.
to the hairs i find on my clothes
when you’re gone,
the apparition of you
a bruise to skin, saying: notice me.
so i did. i started writing this
in the metropolitan museum,
as your neck bent
to touch your nose to the worn out japanese moon.
i started writing this to appease your hairs
& the apparition of you,
then to conjure that which comes & goes
in white ball gowns.
to the nights your ghost waits
for me on the roof, to sing our song
together, fisting guard rail, our neck
craning as we make our reach for moon,
first with our noses
then tongue, an oyster membrane,
shell, vodka & tomato paste. i show you
how my father taught me
what to do with oysters.
to my father & his stories
dreaming on & on, shucking
the flesh of oyster in balboa,
a little more horseradish on the next
he’d say, & the moon over the bay,
the bay beneath it’s pillow,
we all lie where we stand, dead prisoners
my grandmother says meaning
to the cacophony of moon lit rooms
we are shackled.
to her stack of love letters
in the bottom drawer of her armoire
we go to when she forgets who she is.
we talk of the coming & going of our apparitions,
together. we count one, two, three, four.
we’re anywhere our sleep has thought
or seen to make room for us.
i thought i saw you again,
this time in cambridge.
i kept double taking all night
over my shoulder and the malls of america
have grown empty windows now.
i had to walk through
the mall to get to the prudential
& snow made a bed of the city.
there wasn't anything else to do so people walked
on water, & I skipped acorns
across the icy topographical veins. i saw
a lighthouse from fifty floors up.
i saw it blink back. it was the first time
i ever saw a real lighthouse blink.
the airplanes were more seagulls
air beneath wing
making their slow descent all around us.
everyone was either on their way or about to be.
it had been years since i was here,
& i realize, now, we are supposed to have learned
what we have not. my friend says you should
come back in the summer or spring,
but what is the point? what is Boston
without a brutal fugue of wind & ice and brick.
my friend told me a story last night
i thought only of Eleni’s father paraphrasing for me
in the kitchen before i left,
we all should be weary of poets who dream to be sailors
rehearsing the way he’d do it
when in the hospital, looking his friend in the eye,
the terrible proliferation of equipment all around them
& i could almost hear the whales that swim our dreams
& i could almost understand what they were trying to tell me.
nothing seems impossible after it’s already happened,
& still people will. & still people will. we need people
in our lives who will what we won’t.
we need the snow to help us see what we can’t.
& if you see me double take
over my shoulder, it’s only because
i thought i’d seen a ghost
or beacon
or you across the room.
Keegan Lester is a poet splitting time between New York City and Morgantown, West Virginia. His work recently appears in PowderKeg, Boaat, The Atlas Review, The Journal, Tinderbox, CutBank and Sixth Finch among others and has been featured on NPR and Coldfront. His manuscript “We Both Go Together if One Falls Down” was a finalist for the 2016 Georgia Poetry Prize. He is the cofounder and poetry editor for the journal Souvenir Lit.
to héloïse d’argenteuil & peter abélard.
to the bones of the pair, moved more than once afterwards,
preserved even through the vicissitudes of french revolution.
to the bones of the pair now presumed to lay
in the well-known tomb in père lachaise cemetery.
by tradition, lovers or singles leave letters at the feet
in tribute to the letters the couple lettered
across oceans of french wheat, in tourist hope
of finding true love. to the angels waiting
with toothy spears around crypt, to be called back
home again, not feet away from the other sleeping
lovers no one else will write about in greek, nor latin
nor lit moon sky. to the others like us.
to walking side by side through someone else’s graveyard
pondering what will become of us when
summer makes it’s slight lean & the transfer of remains
more the shaking of two hand, keeping true a promise
written out long before any thought of the anti-plague of honey
locust in the air. to the skin of our lovers, that in time will be
brittle as favorite pages in our favorite books, eventually
mirroring each other. turn saliva into ink.
mouth deliver us to the present, to the people i love today
before becoming a stranger’s dark blanket lit by the lamps
of our heads. to the faint wisps of music, guessing orange
plumage rife from another’s time but no less discreet
of the volition of our small lives lived.
to the plains of musashi.
to the teachers living for headlines
of the national enquirer.
to the moon once silver,
but blackened by age,
worn out, you say. it’s sad, you say,
face pressing glass
as close as security will let you
to the fan of grass chuting,
as close as security will let your face
press against the moon
slipping, the crane necks tucked
for flight. to as close as they will let you
press your face to the bowl of peaches, placed there for longevity.
to the hairs i find on my clothes
when you’re gone,
the apparition of you
a bruise to skin, saying: notice me.
so i did. i started writing this
in the metropolitan museum,
as your neck bent
to touch your nose to the worn out japanese moon.
i started writing this to appease your hairs
& the apparition of you,
then to conjure that which comes & goes
in white ball gowns.
to the nights your ghost waits
for me on the roof, to sing our song
together, fisting guard rail, our neck
craning as we make our reach for moon,
first with our noses
then tongue, an oyster membrane,
shell, vodka & tomato paste. i show you
how my father taught me
what to do with oysters.
to my father & his stories
dreaming on & on, shucking
the flesh of oyster in balboa,
a little more horseradish on the next
he’d say, & the moon over the bay,
the bay beneath it’s pillow,
we all lie where we stand, dead prisoners
my grandmother says meaning
to the cacophony of moon lit rooms
we are shackled.
to her stack of love letters
in the bottom drawer of her armoire
we go to when she forgets who she is.
we talk of the coming & going of our apparitions,
together. we count one, two, three, four.
we’re anywhere our sleep has thought
or seen to make room for us.
i thought i saw you again,
this time in cambridge.
i kept double taking all night
over my shoulder and the malls of america
have grown empty windows now.
i had to walk through
the mall to get to the prudential
& snow made a bed of the city.
there wasn't anything else to do so people walked
on water, & I skipped acorns
across the icy topographical veins. i saw
a lighthouse from fifty floors up.
i saw it blink back. it was the first time
i ever saw a real lighthouse blink.
the airplanes were more seagulls
air beneath wing
making their slow descent all around us.
everyone was either on their way or about to be.
it had been years since i was here,
& i realize, now, we are supposed to have learned
what we have not. my friend says you should
come back in the summer or spring,
but what is the point? what is Boston
without a brutal fugue of wind & ice and brick.
my friend told me a story last night
i thought only of Eleni’s father paraphrasing for me
in the kitchen before i left,
we all should be weary of poets who dream to be sailors
rehearsing the way he’d do it
when in the hospital, looking his friend in the eye,
the terrible proliferation of equipment all around them
& i could almost hear the whales that swim our dreams
& i could almost understand what they were trying to tell me.
nothing seems impossible after it’s already happened,
& still people will. & still people will. we need people
in our lives who will what we won’t.
we need the snow to help us see what we can’t.
& if you see me double take
over my shoulder, it’s only because
i thought i’d seen a ghost
or beacon
or you across the room.
Keegan Lester is a poet splitting time between New York City and Morgantown, West Virginia. His work recently appears in PowderKeg, Boaat, The Atlas Review, The Journal, Tinderbox, CutBank and Sixth Finch among others and has been featured on NPR and Coldfront. His manuscript “We Both Go Together if One Falls Down” was a finalist for the 2016 Georgia Poetry Prize. He is the cofounder and poetry editor for the journal Souvenir Lit.
