Tense
Benjamin S. Grossberg
My species has one for nouns
in the process of passing: say,
a planet you no longer stand on
but which still exerts on(施加于) you its
considerable
tug1, the fist
of its massy core reaching
up through groin(腹股沟) and torso(躯干).
A way, then, to say, not I am
on this world or I was, but
that other state, the one
between. We use it to discuss
the dying -- though usually not
to their faces -- and dinner --
as plates are cleared -- also love
in its last phases, the sharp
jerk before it, too, falls back
lifeless on the bed. Therefore
we listen especially carefully
to a soured beloved for
the inflection of ending:
that inflected ending (the slip
like a sheet of paper torn
lengthwise) added to a verb,
a
susurrant(喃喃低语的) gut2 punch.
shared years in this tense
reality as if his couch were set
on a cliff edge: moonless
of ourselves, our common life
this way: never we are, we were --
in a liminal mood. I started
to get used to it -- and to him --
and imagined an entire
existence like that, hunched(缩成一团的)
under afghans in dark night,
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