22. 23. 24. Three poems of Mori:

1. Japan, Harvest Moon, fall 1470:

sunlight meets chandelier;
now things get erotic.
everything delights in opening. .
the pleasure of colors spill out

everywhere.

the mood of lucency, moonlight. son of an emperor
daughter of a peasant. uncreate mind’s insistence
on alternatives (Wave? Particle?).

her body, careless across bed. his lips to her warm wet.
worship meets. mind silences. the Davisson–Germer
experiment is made in love.

now things get erotic
everything delights in
entering.
(A person enters a room. The room has
more than one door. The person must enter
through one of them never all of them at
once. An electron enters a room. The
electron can, and always does, enter
through all doors simultaneously.)

the pleasures of wisdom spill out

everywhere.

2. Denmark, Cold Moon, winter 1067:

After Loki I was the first to borrow Freyja’s cloak of falcon
feathers. I flew to you. Flew across centuries and oceans.

I could not bear the separation and so, not finding you
quickly enough, I consulted the Thrice Burnt Thrice Born,
the she-witch Gullvieg.

She spoke:
“I am sorry but there is nothing I can say that
would not perchance dismantle, denude, destroy the
careful contrivance you call ‘your life.’”

And so, I lay down on pine bow bed, wildflower, arch of
bones, Viking feast in the halls of Fólkvangr.

I practiced the s
e
x

magic of the old Norse: dwarves painted on
the sides of barn timbers, the deep pull of
ancient wells, the sorcery of touch wood,
skin bag
ermine gloves.

Due to my being a man, she would not at first see me. But
she was Freyja’s sister and so I told her it was of you. I
knew she would understand the backward way of love; I told
her you are my household. I told her that without you I

have no poetry. She laughed like lunacy. “Love’s
unknowings outweigh human contrivances,” she whispered.

She burnt plants: henbane, mushroom, pine sap.
She unmade man-ness, took away gendering.
She went to her loom, loosened a knot in the woof,
the ways in which you were hidden were undone.

She tied a knot, the enemy was bound.
She made me a finder of futures and pasts.

That unsane sister tied the words ‘yours’ ‘mine’ to colored
thread and wove them into the community of messengers

the bird-headed females
called envoys of sages.

Then and there I unbecame and became again. Now, unlike
that odd species called “men,” I am not endangered (or
engendered) by womanly freedoms...

When I die I will go with the half who journey to Freyja, to
you. Let the men who only know battle go to Odin.

 
3. Atlanta, Flower Moon, spring 2001:

new moon’s darkness is a cloak
a mantle over your
shoulder.
(I can’t quite remember anymore
did I call you or am I the called?
little matter.)

now i journey down. my lips
draw out threads of pleasure –
a little art that weaver taught me.

now my kisses open, disclose.
now your hand invites, draws in.
now this time, and that, are only.

the milky way of your legs spread
their beauty across the pilgrimage
of my hands.

your sighs balance my accounts and
the three times become one.