For Nadya Ginsburg—
my heroine with a thousand voices.
*
Tiptoeing through the foothills of eternity,
following sunset into a vineyard where dreams
are crushed furiously by an industry hearts
warn me to resist, I am led to a body
working her starry pool far too beautifully
not to quench my tongue’s thirsting curiosity—
‘Nadya,’ she says, sensing my curiosity
before I can ask, ‘It’s been an eternity
waiting for you,’ she continues, seeing my dreams
come true, as if broken solitude did to hearts
what breaking laws does for the news, lust too bawdy
to honour she who proves love sculpts beautifully,
and into her gaze I am called, beautifully
falling like an empire from curiosity,
desiring her, burning for an eternity
as a desert does, swollen from those fever dreams
her voice causes, a thousand characters whose hearts
in her hands find life, writing for each a body
whose lines fall flat and rise as she wills, nobody
able to fill minds and mouths more beautifully
than this damsel saving me, curiosity
killing insecurity as eternity
cancels fear and lifts the lowly, retooling dreams
to better suit he whose loneliest of stone hearts
fits more comfortably next to hers, heavy hearts
lightened by laughter she darts into my body,
wide smiles and loose cameras shoot beautifully
an artist and his Muse whose curiosity
in those whom she moves preserves for eternity
one fleeting moment which for a whole life one dreams,
to create together a picture no one dreams
better than they who direct their own neon hearts,
this goddess I find here not just anybody
but she who performs comedy beautifully,
firing me a glance luring curiosity,
my eyes falling as she pauses eternity
and exhibits her talent, an eternity
discreetly passing as she remedies my heart’s
melancholy, beating it off beautifully.
Jono Borden 