The Stranger

Looking as I’ve looked before, straight down the heart
​of the street to the river
​walking the rivers of the avenues
​feeling the shudder of the caves beneath the asphalt
​watching the lights turn on in the towers
​walking as I’ve walked before
​like a man, like a woman, in the city
​my visionary anger cleansing my sight
​and the detailed perceptions of mercy
​flowering from that anger

​if I come into a room out of thе sharp misty light
​and hear them talking a dead languagе
​if they ask me my identity
​what can I say but
I am the androgyne
I am the living mind you fail to describe
​in your dead language
​the lost noun, the verb surviving
​only in the infinitive
​the letters of my name are written under the lids
​of the newborn child