I S- No T
The title of this poem is IS / NOT. But Bolzano has restrictive rules about page titles.
i
Love is not a profession genteel or otherwise
sex is not dentistry the slick filling of aches and cavities
you are not my doctor you are not my cure,
nobody has that power, you are merely a fellow/traveller.
Give up this medical concern, buttoned, attentive,
permit yourself anger and permit me mine
which needs neither your approval nor your surprise
which does not need to be made legal which is not against a disease
but against you, which does not need to be understood
or washed or cauterized, which needs instead
to be said and said. Permit me the present tense.
ii
I am not a saint or a cripple, I am not a wound; now I will see whether I am a coward.
I dispose of my good manners, you don’t have to kiss my wrists.
This is a journey, not a war, there is no outcome, I renounce predictions
and aspirins, I resign the future as I would resign an expired passport: picture and signature are gone along with holidays and safe returns.
We’re stuck here on this side of the border in this country of thumbed streets and stale buildings
where there is nothing spectatular to see and the weather is ordinary
where love occurs in its pure form only on the cheaper of the souvenirs
where we must walk slowly, where we may not get anywhere
or anything, where we keep going, fighting our ways, our way not out but through.
