No puedes medir la circunferencia
pero hay centros:
piedras, y una mujer lavando en un vado,
el agua corre marrón rojiza del lavado.
Las bocas de las cuevas. Las bocas de las campanas.
Hacia el norte el cielo invernal
bajo nubes de nieve, verde jade.
No hay estrella más lejana que el fulgor
de mica en un guijarro sobre la mano,
o más cerca. La distancia es mi dios.

Tuve un pequeño desnudo pensamiento
deslizóse entre mis muslos
y corrió sin que lo cazaran
y voló sin que le enseñaran.
¡Oh mira qué veloz vuela!
Mi pensamiento bebé, mi pequeño
pájaro rosado va desnudo.
Debo coser palabra a palabra a palabra
y abotonar su ropa
y así crece y camina y habla y muere.
Cuando esté muerta busca la rosa
que crezca entre mis ojos.
Los pájaros se posarán sobre la espina y la hoja,
pájaros silenciosos nacidos al silencio.

Why is it I want to cry?
Crow, crow, tell me.

There is a shadow passing by.
The willows call me.

Why would an old woman weep?
Willow, tell me, willow.

Crows went flying through my sleep.
I cry and follow.

“All around us is the skin,
helping keep our bodies in.”

I’ve known that poem sixty years.
There’s more to it than first appears.

If we were skinless, like a cloud,
would we not mingle with the crowd?

Would not our little bodies be
more boundless even than the sea,

and gaseous as the atmosphere?
Would we be there as well as here?

Would I be you, and you be me,
and both of us mere entropy?

The two it takes to tango need
to be discrete, not just discreet.

The skin, however, does have holes
for letting in and out our souls,

our food, and such necessities.
It is designed to serve and please.

It washes well, but with the years
gets wrinkles, little spots and smears,

and somehow doesn’t seem to fit
as seamlessly as once as it did.

But still it is my nomad’s tent,
my shelter, my integument,

the outside of myself, this thin,
seemingly superficial skin,

that hems me neatly all about,
keeping foreign bodies out,
and keeping me, a while yet, in.