Sophia Nichols,

the wind hits and returns it is easy to personify

a new place and language, but the new body stings

these men with green eyelids, drawing their worth,

it was rumoured, from Egypt, knew

the work is part of it a power arrived at the

same thirst

he borrowed a head for a day

but which head the phrases tremble in the other

mouth it is true and false the veil of her face,

an old porcelain, not for the hand to comfort she

moved beyond the sop one gave for affection ‘My

success has been to keep duty and love alive’ she said

her hand waved with the power of disease Sophia

Nichols of the orchards, the deserts, the flooded

ponds and games wherein the moon sought our feet

died with a mouth full of tumour it is true and

false the moon flowers ( that is Blake talking )

tonight it is the half blossom and the stars too

above this mud are from the other mouth this city

untouched the streets, Hotel Lyric have a foreignness,

a place outside a window a sound of bees pulling

the lilac above cement this wonder ( the other mouth )

that crickets were men once who so loved the muses they

forgot to eat now fed on thistles, the language must

sting the flesh turn to a dew ( the other mouth ) the

loss, some glistening blood on the leaves of the mirror

plant Sophia Nichols of the story, the goldenrod,

of the snake that entered the cage and ate the captured

sparrows, the telegraph keys, pale yellow paper, of

the Odyssey and the homing stories of the soul, the sea

imaginary, light and foaming green on the rocks dark

further out as the eye of the cat

if she would be

free from words, she would free me even in the night

there are birds summoned by words

Source: The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser (University of California Press, 2006)