Michael Heller

Isohel

(the isohel is an imaginary line on a map connecting places known to have equal durations of sunlight)

To be catalogued by desire,

loving even the self’s falsest myth;

its rising to mind with the day.

setting in moonlight, leaving one

with a requisite sadness. Words.

Even those inevitably borrowed,

ringing in at least two heads. Words

making that song for one, while filling

another with shame or hate. All of life:

its two places. Our world is widely spaced,

and can’t be witnessed as one or by one.

And this, I would say, is almost an image of charity,

a desire for another to have as much freedom as oneself.

And some will feel that to use language is a menace over thanatos,

a desire to be immortal, a desire to shine, to shine endlessly, wherever.

Everything Translates

for Anselm

To hear the fan go

to imagine air

filling whatever space

is before it, hot interior

of a cabin, half-helix

of the ear where sound tickles.

Cage shuts himself

in a still, sealed room

to hear his blood pound.

No purity like that for me

nor for a translator letting

the world’s noise enter,

an intruder banging on the door.

At least, half of the pounding

gets past the tympanum,

at least half of that reaches

to the heart which adds

that pounding to its own.