Berry - Stranger, Baby

If you are not happy, the sea is not happy It sulks in and out of the bay I lie on the bed or stand at the window watching the sea Why must we destroy what we do Watching the sea is like watching something in pieces continually striving to be whole Imagine trying to pick up a piece of the sea and show it to a person I tried to do that All that year I visited a man in a room I polished my feelings Sometimes I think if the devil came and offered to swap me into some other body without me knowing what Id be getting, Id say Sure And, sure, I believe in the devil I wanted to love the world I thought when all the anxiety slipped away, Id watch it go, and Id know precisely Every increment of its departure The way getting better can be an unfolding The covers pulled back, the light coming in * The mood of the sea is catching Your eyes wear out from all the glitches I sat there watching it and I can assure you it is so Its colour became the colour of my eyes and the salt made me cry oceans * I like curved things Apples, peaches, the crest of a wave We once agreed the apple was the only iconic fruit I like it when I am writing a poem and I know that I am feeling something To be poised and to invite contact Or to appear to invite contact Remember when we used to imagineOur correspondence would make us famous or thatOnce wed become famous our correspondence would too?Maybe it still willIll need to make a lot of cuts first When did everybody start wanting to be famous all the time Or has it always been this way This is the rain, the October rain I wrote that when it was still October It must have been raining This is sadness: men in waterproofs dragging the deep lake The warm American voice says: There is no lack or limitation, there is only error in thought My thoughts are wrong.

My thoughts are wrong The thought that my thoughts are wrong is wrong * I started to be able to see in the dark It hurt my eyes My, yes, salty, wet, ocean-coloured eyes Albeit that in the dark they were the colour of the dark, and on fire * When the rain came after the drought they said it was not good enough It would not change things It was the wrong rain The rain came out of my eyes and fell on the ground and dried up Who are you. Who are you. Who are you Stop, language is crawling all over me Sometimes if you stay still long enough you can make it go If a person standing still watched another person minutely moving would it seem after a while as if they were watching the sea? I remember just one thing my mother said to me: Never look at yourself in the mirror when youre crying I did not follow her advice

In a kitchen, on an island, stirring tomato sauce, I am far from home. I stir the thickening tomato sauce. Deadly kitchen, which is hot with the temperament of this country, and with the heat of cooking. Deadly sauce, which thickens with my sinking feeling.

Which cracks my ice caps. And now they let out a scream. I am thirteen years away from home. Later, twenty, and so on. I cant get back. Someone is holding me and crying.

Greek sunset. From now on I will eat only the foods of the region that require no preparation, that cannot break into me: white cheese, white bread. Colour all over my hands, I get down on the floor of a tiled, white room.

(a cut-out) She had it all cut off It was more suitable If only I could see my mother when it is dark, I can see only myself She wont come, they can remove even this cut it off.