Bolivia Series, Bag of Avocados, Pastel, by John Cummings
Cleopatra Searches for Marc Antony
I walk toward the place he was, stepping
on a line of small repeating sounds
that disappear behind me.
My hands push aside the air
with the hot shapes of wanting,
lamps that cannot find what is not there.
Even the thought of him folds
as the blue waves do
that brought him here.
Somewhere else, he enters
the ridged dimensions
of a deep, gray lake.
His image rests there for a moment
blowing like the cloth of a tent
before it vanishes.
_______________
Patricia Nelson
Review by Jared Pearce
I really dig how the images here all stack toward abandonment. I would think that offering a bunch of images of grief and longing would make the grief or longing not feel so lonesome, and I would be wrong, as proved in this beautiful poem.
Review by Zeke Sanchez
“Cleopatra Searches for Marc Antony” is a country I cannot enter into fully because it is written from the vantage point of a woman in love. But I can “almost” get there simply by being human, I suppose. The technique is quite good. I like “small repeating sounds.” And I like the search for what is not there. Antony continues to evade the searcher. “Even the thought of him” disappears, it seems. Love is elusive. It strikes me that Marc Antony might already be dead, and this is Cleopatra missing him before her own untimely and historic death. Beautiful and breathtaking imagery. Delicate, too.