The Passion of Signs

by Barbara Henning

Barbara Henning lives in New York and edits Long News in the Short Century.

The Passion of Signs is a collection of short poems.


A PASSPORT TO PARADISE

(With wrinkled hands crossing off what evidence she never wants him to read) she tacks up flowered curtains and decorative wallpaper, serves basil and tomatoes. To the burden of the present she responds with a rush of aromatic heat--how beautiful the boundless forest. Robin, Robin mine! Think him tenderly on a cool night after WBGD has played Nina Simone for an hour. Clear moonlight rearranged with a breeze from the east. A mild nervous disorder. This spot comfortable, one cigarette after another-- The other an unsettled, wide and cluttered cavern between the written world and my inability to speak--