looking at your picture

I didn’t mean for you to haunt me.

there are no dead
these days.
we sing only elegies of the defeated
full mouth
full bellies
grieving, sad.
I can’t name you
- not to others-
though all night long I speak to you.
it cuts the cloth of the dark.
the world is always alive
all memories, all feelings
lit with electricity.

worm love

tonight our love

feels like a worm
summoned to the surface
by the vibration of the rain.
my dim cluster of nerves
- a brain of sorts - you might call it
struggles to remember
this sound of danger.
-have I heard it before?
like an earthworm I'm
washed away
by less water than it might
take to fill a child's little cup.

the flight

I left you today, love

though perhaps you didn’t notice.

I never left my bench,

never transgressed the garden wall.

still – for a moment – I was

as far from you as the first star.

I planned my escape as carefully

- as painstakingly – as any prisoner.

I crafted my wings from your stolen letters,

from clips and tape left unnoticed on the desk.

I hid my rings (they were too heavy)

in my shoe at the toe

like the mouse we once found

nesting there.

I took off my clothes and opened my chest

(how the rusted hinge cried out!

- I thought for certain

you would hear it).

I wanted to leave behind my heart (it was too heavy),

like the rings, like the shoes, freed for flight

but there was no place safe to hide it.

nor would the door – opened - close again

 like a broken shutter

vulnerable, caught by the wind.

did you notice?

did you hear?

I will tell you, love

(though you did not ask me

-though you found my creased wings

torn and folded in the bin)

why did I return?

always I the felt the weight of my heart in flight

the cold and

the stars and the hazy purple twilight

swirling in my open chest

and I was afraid.

I saw your face – as distant from me as the last star

and then . . .

something drew me back.

something drew me back.

all love is stolen

do you remember my grandmother’s wood?

-the hanging snake vines that formed swings for two,

the pale, upturned roots near the shore,

that made strange, magical palaces?

we called it her wood – though in truth it never was.

we raced through the neighbor’s field to get there

-how furious he would have been to know

that we had crushed a single tender plant.

you held aside the barbed wire,

and I crawled through,

my hair caught, and you pulled it so roughly free

that I cried.

all love is stolen

-you taught me that.

it moves through our heart like a fever

and then it is gone,

no more our own than the amber moon

passing through a cloud.

like children we are freed only for the planting and the harvest.

in the winter we will be called back

to stand in line.

only try love

If I came and I found you empty,

I would remind you, love, of the simplest things

-childish things:

mushroom caps, starflowers and smooth white stones,

the moss castles you used to build me.

If I came and I found you empty,

I would remind you, love, of my grandmother’s wood and

the great, magnificent tree – ruined, split by lighting,

covered in vines and violets

-do you remember?

Do you remember these childish things?

Try, love, simply try.

There was just enough room

for me to crawl inside, to peek out

to touch fingers, to whisper stories.

If I came and I found you empty, love

I would beg you to take me in your arms

and like that wrecked and ruined palace

to close me inside yourself.

it never mattered

I wonder how these days

I can read an entire book

and nothing - not a single word of it

will call you to mind.

everything used to answer

to your name, love.

I lie in bed,

I stand in line,

I stir sweetness into tea,

all these plain tasks empty me.

once I wrote you the saddest lines.

I kept them near me

-you would laugh if you knew how close.

always – as if paper and ink mattered.

always - as if folded and crumpled in pockets

you made them matter.

it never mattered.

folded in the pages of a book

-one of many on my shelves

I am sure the words are still there.

even they grow faint with time.

now that you are here

sometimes, I wonder
who I am love - now that
you are here.
now that these nameless
fears and desires are named.
I am different now that you are here.
even at the market
I count my coins so carefully.
I picture you in the café
pouring cream into your cup
your hair rumpled like your shirt.
once, you told me
you did not have enough.
old things pass before me
like traffic on the street, like unread words
painted on bright placards.
tender things are left neglected
by weeks without care.
even my garden has changed.
I grow impatient with it
-for good things that ripen too slowly.
the reddest tomato, I would
pick for you.
alone, I would devour it
sprinkled with salt.
after the rain now, I rush out
to stare into the pan
and still I wonder
should there be more?

Two Poems.

One.
Where are you going, my love?

Where have you been?

I have been to the kitchen and back

-to the living room.

I climbed the walls of our garden -

a copper penny

under my tongue

to buy you from the dead.

I knew you had gone.

Where are you going, love?

Where have you been?

My hands are as pale and white

as the stars.

They live in the water

- you drown me

before my time.

Where have you been my love?

Where are you going?

Wherever, I tell you, I have

been there and back again.

It is better here.

When we are together

- a copper penny pressed between us.

Loneliness is what I do

without you.



Two.

I climbed our garden wall, love.

I could not go as I am,

so I left my clothes behind -

folded like sleeping pilgrims on our bed.

The brambles tore my skin.

I left my coat as well, you see.

Outside the gates,

I left my shoes -

their empty shape

was so like my own.