SOUND ASLEEP

Sound
(for A.D.L.)

Asleep and I think to walk on by
but I walk right on in
the sky comes over to me
shy and smiling--soft eyes, soft hands

the sky comes over me like new skin
and I get so happy I just can’t say it.
Running through my brain
is new sunshine and shiny rain

the world alight and waiting, birds
released barely beneath my breath.
Until the sun goes down fighting
(a little like a painted picture

cracks freezing through the skin)
the world slowly turns then hits me
handful of teeth, pomegranate seeds,
alive red tendrils at the end of each.

I don’t know why I don’t run or cry,
just watch as the world begins to hum
packing exactly the things it needs. I—
tell all I know of love to pass the time


Asleep
(for Joy Wang)

And a god could still be
in that familiar caravan
running through my brain

writing beautifully in bloodstains
And in this memory of birds
not perfect, not free, but

clearing the first horizon
While I still sleep
dreaming that they know

all they once wanted
to be--
they are now.