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1
Many times after he was too bitter
to be a boy, he was in his forties, and his drive to work
went not to work, for that was not his career. His calling came
from the vacant lot in his chest; he went every day
about carving more dark, deeper space.
2
The leaves shook like moonlit coins, if you were there
to see them. The owls pitched back and forth
their animal note, or take my word for it.
3
They stand by the lake.
His heart makes the sound of fish
on the deck; she throws him back.
He’s not ready; it’s the law.
4
Red wine stains the glass, their blood.
Her heart tips in her chest.
Her heart tips; the blood is jumping.
The room squeezes, says shhhhh. Her chambers
unload. He tells her this is finally
finished ending. Her blood says whoosh.
5
The dogs pace the hardwood floor of afternoon;
outside, a storm builds and keeps building.
I mention the clothes on the line and expect
a stir of compliant motion until I remember
that I live alone. Who do I think
I’m talking to and who could possibly hear me
over the rain smashing down all the blossoms?
6
Some streak of oil in the driveway,
spent
a cigarette swimming in green tea
seven dirty spoons in the sink, out of sugar
smooth black waves of someone else
against the hard beach of your heart
postcards from a gift shop on the sun
a common name you drop like silver
into my collection plate
dollars in Vegas; a flammable shape
of fall-marked leaves
a strange lake of feathers in the driveway,
flight or is that all now just ash?
7
Many nights into his tunnel,
he drew his finger like a flashlight over the name
he’d sliced into his skin so he could remember
what he wasn’t to forget, but he’d forgotten
the code and the scar became that much more darkness.
8
In the dressing room, she decides
on a lawyer, her claim, and all five black
panties made out of what mostly isn’t there.
9
He exits the cab, knocks on the window and waves them off,
driver, chance, the girl he’ll never, never,
never ever not want to kiss again,
but he’s so already married.
10
The puddle grows monstrous, beyond meteorological
proportions. Something prehistoric feeds
on the bottom; some ambitious schools of nature
leap and flash through the surface, fall back into the soup.
The official name for those high-altitude clouds is "noctilucent
clouds" or "night-shining clouds," little fish,
and they’re made of ice— you’ll never make it.
11
It can be so very serious in the thin air
of a lunar landing, between mammalian shudders
of breath and the spaceage quake of dust.
He thought he couldn’t feel any further
away from her; thankfully, the moon grew darker
than he could imagine.
12
The view improves when the moving van arrives,
unlocks its maw. A long rain is ending.
The unremarkable world takes on an inspired
remark. She is putting away the broom. she is saying
so long to his pillow, his silence. She is so simply
over it with everything today. |
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| October 22, 2003 |
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