Love is insanity

the-encounter by Vladimir Nabokov

the encounter

by Vladimir Nabokov

enchanted by this strange proximity

Longing, and mystery, and delight…
as if from the swaying blackness
of some slow-motion masquerade
onto the dim bridge you came.

And night flowed, and silent there floated
into its satin streams
that black mask’s wolf-like profile
and those tender lips of yours.

And under the chestnuts, along the canal
you passed, luring me askance.
What did my heart discern in you,
how did you move me so?

In your momentary tenderness,
or in the changing contour of your shoulders,
did I experience a dim sketch
of other—irrevocable—encounters?

Perhaps romantic pity
led you to understand
what had set trembling that arrow
now piercing through my verse?

I know nothing. Strangely
the verse vibrates, and in it, an arrow…
Perhaps you, still nameless, were
the genuine, the awaited one?

But sorrow not yet quite cried out
perturbed our starry hour.
Into the night returned the double fissure
of your eyes, eyes not yet illumed.

For long? For ever? Far off
I wander, and strain to hear
the movement of the stars above our encounter
and what if you are to be my fate…

Longing, and mystery, and delight,
and like a distant supplication….
My heart must travel on.
But if you are to be my fate…

To the Swimmer BY COUNTEE CULLEN

To the Swimmer

BY COUNTEE CULLEN

Now as I watch you, strong of arm and endurance, battling and struggling

With the waves that rush against you, ever with invincible strength returning

Into my heart, grown each day more tranquil and peaceful, comes a fierce longing

Of mind and soul...

We Drink at the Attenuation Well Porsha Olayiwola

We Drink at the Attenuation Well

Porsha Olayiwola

Motivated forgetting is a psychological defense mechanism whereby people cope with threatening and unwanted memories by suppressing them from consciousness.             —Amy N. Dalton and Li Huang               in Badagry there is a hung-               ry well of water and memory                                                            loss. in Badagry there was a well                                                           of people lost across a haven    of water. in Badagry there was a port overwhelmed in un-return.                                             to omit within the mind is to ebb                                          heavenward. memory is a wealth                                                                     choking the brain in un-respons-                                                                  ibility. violence in the mind and                                             the mind forgets in order to remember                                          the self before the violence begot.  in Badagry trauma washes ungod- ly memory heavenward. in Bad-                                          agry there is an attenuation well                                         meant to wish away a passage,                                                                          meant to unhaven a people.                                                                       violence is underwhelming                                          in return. what the body eats,                                         the mind waters. responsible    is the memory for un-remittal.  royal is the body for return. god is                                                    the mind for wafting. forgetting                                                   is a port homeward. in Bad-                                                                agry hungry memory grows angry.                                                             in Badagry the memories un-                     choke. trauma un-eats the royal.                   in Badagry there is a heaven                                                                   of people responsible for the birth-                                                                 right of remembering, for the well                                                  of us across a haven of water                                               overwhelmed in un-return.

Copyright © 2020 by Porsha Olayiwola. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 17, 2020 by the Academy of American Poets.