Edgar Gabriel Silex is the author of two poetry collections from Curbstone. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Maryland State Arts Council. He lives in Laurel, Maryland.
Winter 2011
Table of Contents - Vol. VII, No. 4
Poetry Fiction Translations Reviews
Edgar Gabriel Silex
For L. on our 25th
red rock cliffs under Navaho Bridge an emerald river snaking through it
it was raining on the North Rim we could see it miles from where we embraced
waking together under the shade of golden shimmering aspen
to the chatter and laughter of wild turkeys
the California mountain covered in blue flames of lupine
climbing that fallen sky in the cloud mists on a Sunday morning
the vermillion leaves from the autumned maple
illuminating haloing the walls of our bedroom after making love
the lavender dreamsea where I was a luminous fish
swimming through the abyss searching for you
the desert horizon glowing on a moonless night
gazing up at the diamonds I offered you twenty-five years ago
I used to think of nothing but death
how many ways can one die
kill oneself given one’s daily routine
everything grained the ingrained
the day my father ceased to be
the void and blame I wished death on
the slightest slight the merest mere
would set me toward the most severe
my fix on razor blades steak knives
or the child's rope swing out back
I knew then how bivalves make their pearls
how sadness’ wrap themselves inside a life
in luminescent white or blue
or that rare black pearl in the ventricles
growing with each pump of the heart
© Edgar Gabriel Silex
