Anne Carson, Wildly Constant, London Review Of Books

Anne Carson, ‘Wildly Constant’, London Review of Books

“You, my love, are the perfect evening, arms outstretched to balance the tumbling sun in one hand, the cool moon in the other; you, the giver of light to the world. And when you come home, […] iridescence spins about your face, stardust lingers in the crease of your wrists, the crescent beds beneath your nails. And still you reach for me, enough shimmer left to light the doorway, the room, the dark space between my lips.”

— Karla K. Morton, “Shameless Love Poem,” Constant State of Leaping (Texas Review Press, 2014)

I sit with my grief. I mother it. I hold its small, hot hand. I don’t say, shhh. I don’t say, it is okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes.

— Callista Buchen, from “Taking Care,” published in Thrush

I was seven and searching. Sitting in therapy with no language for longing.

Donte Collins, “A Crown for My Birthmother”  (via buttonpoetry)

“But I’ve kissed your mouth, that corner, that place it goes, so many times now. I’ve memorized it. Topography on the map of you, a world I’m still charting. I know it. I added it to the key. Here: inches to miles. I can multiply it out, read your latitude and longitude. Recite your coordinates like La Rosaria.”

— Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue (via moonkinds)

“我住長江頭， 君住長江尾； 日日思君不見君， 共飲長江水。 此水幾時休？ 此恨何時已？ 只願君心似我心， 定不負相思意。 I live upstream and you downstream, From night to night of you I dream. Unlike the stream you are not in view, Though both we drink from River Blue. When will the river no more flow？ When will my grief no more grow？ I wish your heart will be like mine， Then not in vain for you I pine.”

—

Song of Divination (卜算子) by Li Zhiyi (李之儀). Song Dynasty.

Born in Wudi County, Shandong, Li Zhiyi was a Song Dynasty Chinese poet and one of Su Shi’s disciples. Song of Divination plays on the theme of lovesickness between men and women. Using the Yangtze River as a metaphor for both distance and unity, the narrator expresses an intense yearning for their lover.

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