RICHARD ZOLA
when the last dormouse has been flung from the last high window
a branch:
and the claws of the bird
will loosen
when that woman reaches the fountain
when her shadow
darkens the water
before she sits to read
when i've twisted your bracelet
another 5 times
when the white blind
in that window is unrolled
when that yellow door opens
when your painted mouth
next says perpetual
when the infant near the kiosk wakes
when the tall man
and the small man
reach the gate
or at the opening of the octopus eye
oh the branch is empty
Richard Zola paints the power of imagination through interesting structure. The poem defines a branch and the second line continues from the title which subliminally precedes "and"; upon concluding the definition, we learn none of it exists - the 'branch is empty' - and closure reopens the poem to a second reading. How ican an empty branch include all this? The apparent "sentence" structure is without punctuation: through imagination, what is not on the branch remains perpetual as does the "painted mouth" and other objects in the poem are imagined (and, as a poem, imagined perpetually).
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Parts
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