Sandra Lim

Aubade

From the last stars to sunrise the world is dark and enduring
and emptiness has its place.


Then, to wake each day to the world's unwavering
limits, you have to think about passion differently, again.


Don't we forgive everything of a lover
if we are the motive,
if love promises to take us to many places, to even larger themes?


Faithlessness is a heart glancing down
a plumed avenue
in which one is serenaded by myriad, scattering birds.


Thunder in the air begins opening appetites;
everyone is being true to themselves, they think—


And then it is having your right arm sheared off,
and the whole world gets to touch you, chime your losses.


I turn to my imagination, but its eyes are still
green, as if from
too much looking on at equatorial gardens.


Still, if I were you I would linger here,
deepen in the rottenness,
learn something about the world, about the desire for safety.


Then, I'd make an instrument from the ruins,
something awfully beautiful.


I would sit down to eat as if I were reading a poem.
I would observe how the night went into the day with a special grandeur.


It could be like swallowing a sword and growing surprised
by how good it is, how it opens.


And then maybe to sing out with a throat like that—
saying look, look how the world has touched me.

- Sandra Lim