walks into my side, where
the sun sets. It’s a special light this.
When evening takes a sip off the din
of long endurance, becalm, be near me
always—book. So I and I and I we go.
Together under the elms. Won’t that be nice?
To watch one by one all the colors
drain out of the sky into our organs.
SONG OF THE DEN
The small heart
opens out
to meet the world
it carries news
of kindness
for there is only
this and
these small hands
offering
the weather
My street is
not the same
since we’ve met
and darker
for goodbye
The fierce
life is quiet
tenacious as
a parlor for one
where people are
an effort
outside
the walk
to your house
is mirrored
at night
out my window
the crowded
sky
PERIPLUM VII (A VALENTINE)
If I could tell you this
or tell where this is
or where on a given map
this being is
then I would give it to you
though I will not name it
which would not serve
this being the unnamed force
the absolute unnamed this
of our experience together
or to believe that this place
could be made
or if belief could make this space possible
then I will meet you there
live with you there
and discover the essential experience
of being there together
the irreducible together
of this being you
being me
articulate and lithe
HARD AS ASH
On September 20, 1938, Miss Newcombe, 22, combusted before a roomful of people while waltzing in a dance hall in Chelmsford, England. Blue flames erupted from her body and in a matter of minutes she was reduced to a small pile of ash.
Some trees cannot grow without fire.
Private catastrophes at the speed of Phaethon.
What was X? Without faith an integer of light broke
into cities of geometry. Define Y.
In the desert it is all calculus. In an overcoat
in winter, without socks I wandered into night.
One by one all the bars fell into place.
The day of the talking stones is
no longer. The dreams of metamorphosis.
The morning you woke up and for a moment forgot
to call them “dead,” it was the morning
of the poem. The subject is the content into
which I step lovingly. This lapidary effect
of all sons sets where houses invest
the notions of “home” or “hearth” and heat
gives even as the earth rolls over
into night and is contained or content
to remain itself while still breaking
into flower or streets with cadences of wind.
Your musics insist to inform me by
remaining plastic. With you I will revise
the entire possibility of twilight.
The day is woven into images we adhere to
only memory of light against
a screen door ajar. Then children’s
faces appear. A thematic see-saw,
silhouetted now—romantic and real.
How can we say in this hour, who
will resolve the interplay of your countenance,
this ellipsis, the way you come
to me pictorially, in time, with space
that is real. Though someone will die
and I’ll have to wear a tie, again.
This is only a poem to say I love you.
I love you too. I’ve been so happy.
Happy! These sun notes bend the porpoise
in my eye, quiet the pony inside. You know,
when the creek meets the little paper hats
floating out to sea. The cabby goes past
your stop but the bar on the corner
wears a preternatural smile, is more
companionable than what you call home.
So you discover hospitality in tight pants
where the traffic goes both ways.
Has anyone asked you lately
are you all right in your new homes
and does your electric bill depress you
when they cut your powwow?
I was going to build you a flower.
Then the day broke apart. Big leaves
halved and greasy as a waxy stem revealed
a voice I misplaced when I was a girl.
It was summer and we were there
and so was the phonograph
and the missing relatives drowned
earlier in the century during the great migration
of sentences when words were collected
with a winnowing fan. You should have seen it.
I did. Then it was another day arrived
unlike the stubble that had grown up
before, clear and wide with a glint
around all the small names
belonging to the places they are keeping.
When