wing words

by Daphne Marlatt

     Note: These poems are from a series called flights written
     about not only my childhood in Penang (& the feeling of
     being both here in Vancouver, & there) but also my dad’s
     early years there in the 30s based on letters he wrote home to
     his mother in England.

     No more now; writing is rather difficult tonight as we have a
     visitation of many small insects of various shapes & sizes. They
     keep falling down from the lamp overhead & my pen has to
     thread its way between their corpses.
    Penang, December 20th 1935

amber smudge wing smears
on yellowing letter stock signed
from Arthur blue ink blue
inkthin line drawn
under

small wing blurs
amber hairlike, yours

on the back of your hand
under bachelors’ mess lamp

pen nib skirting
burned wings to wing
words crossocean

wealth uncountable
unpriced moth throe, firefly
blur

temple flowers, white, fragrant
through window unglassed
your light

attract

death to paper via
Indian Ocean, Suez, Medi
terranean, mother Angleterre

this wing wealth then
a line drawn

No more

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