Liam Moore

Things                                                                             

(versión en español)

What plain desire doesn't give you
You will have to find in uncertainty.
And that should be enough
To at least give you a start

Today. Pluck at curtains,
Wash dishes, send for something
You've seen advertised on television.
Fix a specific point for your loss,

That, in your grasping,
Is revealed to be an object,
Something patient on your night
Table that only mildly suggests

How it could go beyond itself
In your morning vagueness
And afternoon fatigue. If
You know a priest, watch

His hands as he blesses.
Slender hands are they? Caressing
A loss? Or only the air? Sexual,
Military? Or is there really

Something that is only religion?
These questions, and others,
Standby, but I guess we've
Got time. Pluck at the

Curtains, look down at the street,
There it is, maybe. Or not.
Your neighbor's found something
Buried in his yard but

Won't tell you what it is. It
Seems our lives revolve
Around such things: alarm
Clocks, priest's hands, an

Old man frantically digging
Next to the fence. Or maybe
They revolve, too? Back to
Uncertainty, and its companion,
Plain desire.

Liam Moore,  a poet and fiction writer, was born in Salt Lake City in 1966. He lived from 1989 to 2000 in Italy and Spain, where among other activities he was a film translator. He disappeared into the American West in December 2000 and emerged in New York City in the fall of 2002 to pursue Ph.D. studies in Medieval History at Columbia University.