Margo Berdeshevsky
One of these is true.

All the animals were making love. It was the day for it. All the other
animals but a wolf hid, listening to the slide trombone of his own
breath. Who lay in a dim room, quiet but for the simmer

of breaths of the lovers outside. It was their day. There was no lock on the
room. Only a belief that he was meant to lie in the silence. Breathe in the
dim. Not meant to question. No howling. No

questions. He slept, warmed by the high fever of his belief.

Once upon a time there were bodies strewn and none to gather them. It
was a massacre. That's why we remember the day. Death had shot and
shot and gotten away with it. That's what survivors

said. Warmed by the high fever of their belief.

It was one single arrow of passion, and Eros was good with it. A winner.
Whom it struck—loved and was loved in return. Until it hurt the heart.
No questions were allowed. The poison of love was a

perfect killer. Everyone wanted to taste the poison. Warmed by the high
fever of their belief.

Once upon a time there was a peaceful body born who loved everyone
and everything on earth and in the air. No one had taught her. She would
lie down in silence on a road or a field to stop bullets or

souls. She believed in the power of her thought. If warriors came with
flags and swords and bombs and God on their side—stop! said her naked
woman body, paused in the path of their attacks. She's on

fire, observers saw. And loving her, stop! said the covens of owls, stop,
said a murder of crows, stop, said eyes from branches to the east,
branches to the west. Stop, said the hawk who loved wars. Stop

murmured the dove who knew the hawk very well. And her naked body
whispered, God does not love warriors. A whisper that pierced their
hearts that wanted to be loved by their own God. There,

whispered the woman, looking to a sky she believed she saw . . . do you
know what to do now, God? Warmed by the high fever of her belief.

One of these is true. Or almost. A gift from the winter.
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Champion of Poetry from "the Edge of Disintegration" Dies

"A. Alvarez, a British poet, critic and essayist who played a pivotal role in bringing the poetry of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath to the public, and whose acclaimed book on the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas helped transform high-stakes professional poker from a cult to a televised sport, died on Monday at his home in London."

via THE NEW YORK TIMES
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Cover of Bei Dao's book, Endure
"[O]nce a poem is out in the world, there’s no way to predict the different uses, appropriations, misappropriations, readings and anti-readings to which it might be put, nor the places and times where it might emerge, uncanny, as if with fresh meaning.  Bei Dao’s 'The Reply' ('Huídá,' sometimes also translated as 'Answer') is one such poem, with an intense career all its own.”
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