Elizabeth Lofgren

LI PO DROWNS EMBRACING THE MOON
 
Wine loosens the stems of his poems.
They drift down, numerous as ginkgo
leaves and accumulate a golden
mirror around the emperor's feet.
 
Li Po, caged lark in the emperor's
aviary, fallen blossoms fill
his sleeves. Intoxicated, he can
forget the bars across the moon's face.
 
Uncaged, exiled now, Li Po counts his
aches as numerous as willow tears.
Sprawled in his boat, toking from a jug,
he notices a breeze has broken
 
the moon's reflection into
wavering shafts. Wine drunk,
he struggles overboard to
hold her in the circle of his arms.
 
Once his genius could have repaired her
radiant water face; tonight his fall
scatters her light in a thousand pieces.
Her ripples dance above his head.

© Elizabeth S. Lofgren
1994