La Boda del Mar y Arena
–Aracelis Girmay

If we, for long enough, look,
with the clean eyes of children
at what this big house is saying,

we will start to understand
the language of our parents,
what the salt means.

I do not want to marry the wind
who leaves me things the color of gold,
whose tracks mark a serpent round the house.

More, more than parrots, more than gold,
I want my love to know my ear.
My love, I want to know your ear, & in this

instant that is as long as my life, I stand,
rigged with bones, beside the window:
beneath the purple dark of evening coming,

the sea & beach move into each other’s mouths
particle by particle; each one wanders
the big rooms of the other.

O, god, let us love
like they love.