HIS GRANDFATHER'S FACE And when the man saw that his face was the face of his grandfather
he began speaking to himself out loud
across the generations
and his wife breathing in their wide bed
made her eyes slits
the palm of her hand over them like a tent
to catch sight of him from the distance.
*
I REVEALED TO THE FISH I told the fish his own silent name.
He formed it with his mouth
till the water read his lips
till the water spread his name all over
steaming into cloud
beating against the shore
drying into nothingness.
And nothingness didn't know how to pronounce the fish's name
though a silent name it was.
*
QUESTION In each of the seasons of the year the question was asked differently and the people erred in thinking there were many questions rather than the same one repeated question that isn't in need of reply its aim only to pass over the surface of faces, changing their expressions raising and lowering their lips and eyebrows to the sound like a pencil marking vibrations of heat and cold