If I could take out my eyes and eat them,

I would do it for the mourning orange tree of your voice

And for your poetry that comes forth shouting.

--from Pablo Neruda's "Ode to Federico Garcia Lorca"

I love the voice of Pablo Neruda, whether it is singing a deep-throated lament
or spilling whispers in awe of the human breast.

But sometimes, when I read too much at one sitting, when the images become overly weird,
I cry for help between gulps of the sea: somebody! I am drowning in words!

Other times, most times, in fact, I simply enjoy the music, the scent of the clock, the taste of window and oats,
the chitter-chatter of exemplary penguins, the hungry solitude of manure,
the necktie and its wet, gorgeous eyelids of snow and vinegar.

There--in the light of a withered explosion--I pawn the moon's bicycle, cheap and astringent...

Pass the eyeballs, I am ready to eat.