Night Currents


She leans over a porcelain bowl,

rinses her face with lavender.

Water streaks down her cheeks

as she answers the phone.

His voice searches the space around her.

He feels her there alone. His voice

she tastes without swallowing,

lets it linger in her mouth like fine curry,

the spices — waves riding her tongue:

cardamom, coriander, cumin, clove.



She knows he has dreamt of her again.

She feels that remorse he carries on such nights

when he comes to her

like a tribesman to confess

dreaming harm to a companion.



He comes to her as one to a lake,

kneels,

cups her in his palms,

feels her spill upon his crown,

his forehead.

Drawing fingers to his mouth

he drinks of her.



He awakens

finds himself immersed

completely.

He leaves

as if it were a sin

to love water.





In Winter


He felt suspicious of this woman,

of the yes she lived unambivalently,

of the distance she traveled that he

had never known.



How could he know of the years in which that yes

grew within her

the way a bamboo leaf bends under the

weight of mounting snow?

How could he trust it? Seeing only

the sudden slide of snow to the ground,

and the leaf not stirred.

RISA KAPARO received a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the Professional School for Psychological Studies. She is a psychological and somatic therapist and an award-winning poet. Her poetry and essays have been widely published. Her first collection of poems, Embrace, is being published by Scarlet Tanager Books and will be available in March of 2002. She has taught at M.I.T., John F. Kennedy University, The California Institute of Integral Studies, New College and numerous other universities and professional institutions. She lives and works in California and Hawaii and gives lectures, seminars and workshops worldwide. (www.risakaparo.com).

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