Timothy Liu is the author of eight books of poems, most recently Polytheogamy and Bending the Mind Around the Dream's Blown Fuse His poems have been translated into ten languages, and his journals and papers are archived in the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library. Liu lives in Manhattan.
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The Moon in Greece
When the sea is calm and the moon
near full, the fishermen say the weather
will remain as it has been, the ships
will sail at dawn, and all can go on
as before. So it’s hard to imagine why
one would not love the moon on a night
like this, or any night, whether it be seen
or hidden, the moon exerting its pull
wherever we are, though here one sees
the real moon, not the one in the mind.
near full, the fishermen say the weather
will remain as it has been, the ships
will sail at dawn, and all can go on
as before. So it’s hard to imagine why
one would not love the moon on a night
like this, or any night, whether it be seen
or hidden, the moon exerting its pull
wherever we are, though here one sees
the real moon, not the one in the mind.
On Rhodes
There are two kinds of men—
those who grab their own
knees riding on the hump
of a roaring Vespa, hoping
the turns that will get taken
won’t be too sharp or sudden—
and those with arms looped
around a buddy’s waist,
leaning into all the starts
and stops, eager for wherever
his man might take him—
those who grab their own
knees riding on the hump
of a roaring Vespa, hoping
the turns that will get taken
won’t be too sharp or sudden—
and those with arms looped
around a buddy’s waist,
leaning into all the starts
and stops, eager for wherever
his man might take him—