Marguerite and Kazim by Kazim Ali

After “Jules and Jim” by Donald Revell

god was very near
not burned in stone
he was the ruined
face of Duras
and there is no more river

across which she traveled
where I was discarded
where any singer who groans
animal lyrics would be
rented to the army

of death bringers and
the songs inside them
no more of the lover who
hasn’t written for years
of whom all I remember is

his mercurial sadness
even when he smiled
today god is jovial
saturnine with
moonrise to evenstar

recounts Duras
in the far field the army
still wreaks a storm
because of a great piece of music
I have lived this long

God and gods destroyed
but never ruined the face
of a writer who had a lover
and remembered

Kazim Ali‘s most recent books are a collection of poetry, Inquisition, and a collection of essays and lyric prose, Silver Road: Essays, Maps, and Calligraphies. He divides his time between Ohio and California.