Dark matter 

Rebecca Elson

Above a pond, 

An unseen filament 

Of spider’s floss 

Suspends a slowly 

Spinning leaf.

My bingo cards are empty, because I’m not paying attention.

I can’t hear the numbers, because something inward is being given

substance.

- Henri Cole

Lately, remembering anything involves an ability

to forget something else. Watching the news,

I writhe and moan; my mind is not itself.

- Henri Cole

He was doing lines on a mirror and had sugar spots on his nose.

It made him seem focused, with a conversational prowess.

I was in some kind of low-oxygen dead zone. You flee or suffocate.

Only jellies survive. Maybe I was afraid of emptiness—horror

vacui.

- Henri Cole

My lips were not yet content

with stillness. We were on our way home

from a nightclub. I adore you, Miguel moaned,

but have to return now. Remember

death ends a life, not a relationship.

- Henri Cole

I stayed silent for many years.

Nothing came of it —

neither good,

nor evil.

- Ryszard Krynicki

Cats

Ryszard Krynicki

The Lord God got cats right—

Wisława Szymborska sometimes says.

Sometimes she adds: Only.

Sometimes: The best.

Silent, soaring,

early autumn light

glowed past the window.

I miss you.

- Ryszard Krynicki

In this country? Yes, I stayed in this country.

Exile comes in many shapes

and places.

- Ryszard Krynicki

Nothing, night beyond the glass

looks through me with the non-gaze

of the boy I was, am

not, won't be.

- Ryszard Krynicki

The seer and the visible reciprocate one another.

- Maurice Merleau-Ponty

What we see only lives in our eyes by what looks at us.

The act of seeing attains its fullness only by opening itself in two.

- Georges Didi-Huberman

The world is not what I think, but what I live through.

- Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Respect is possible only where there is distance.

- Byung-Chul Han