‘Night

It takes her a moment

to figure things out:

the clock didn’t stop working;

it really is 3:52 in the morning.

 

When’s the last time you caught

the clock staring at 3:52?

Too early. Still night,

not yet morning. Be still night.

 

The rattling of the house

lulls her sleep to deep;

then capriciously,

wakes her up again.

 

She says: fuck that.

without anger.

Tastes the calm relish

of expecting nothing.

_

Often

Often there are strangers’ voices

speaking sounds not words

Often there are men in the house

their fists rising like voices

 

Nobody notices that I am gone

sleeping and eating like an animal

in the ditch curved protectively

around the house

 

And often, I have the power 

to make them disappear

simply, stealthily putting

my palms to my eyes, my ears.

__

End Ice

 

Rain makes

unanticipated patterns

on the windows

like broken glass.

And on the street

windshields

like cobwebby ice.

The old man inside

is laughing.

Or coughing.

__

Dust falls like words, whose

shadows, shadowy images

distend the dawn

You do not know how

our life is claimed

by my memories

that you cannot see

My small self crouches there

in a wet, shrunken 

world

Burning like litanies

to firedrakes

tending volcanoes

bridging basalt

Beyond the imagined fire

is hurt, sharp

as cold

My father told me stories

of courage and justice

that I remembered 

long after he forgot

Stories you never knew

now you can never color

in your own childhood

with brave human love

Volcano mouths close

easy as eyes, memory

makes of us a midden

_

Actually, intellect

Last night I dreamt I was at a party with Tom Stoppard. 

Um. Actually, I was married to him and he was alternately showing me off, arm-candy style, while also patronizing me in an arch, I-can-only-describe-it-as-British way. I, correspondingly, alternated between blase indifference and intense irritation leavened with the odd moments of begrudging astonishment at his always breathtaking wit.

At some point in our private conversation (albeit conducted in the presence of a highly interested audience), he told me that theater was sometimes "converse prose," and I woke up clutching that strange phrase like a talisman rubbed raw.

When I told Big A, he said, 

Well, you've always been good at crushing on elderly intellectuals.

I wonder how intellectual I look when my mouth is hanging open.

__

TO, FROM

Morning’s journey through the smoke of birds,

the flat sheets of faded sky, is mine alone

but my small companions also wake early

to be fed and bundled for the day

the scent, strength, and reach of their arms

tucked into my head. We move ahead.

 

And though I may seem to—

No. Do forget to chart or care

about them under the stern pace

of university windows and computer screens

like differently uniformed, shutter-eyed guards,

I captain this journey too, alone. Too alone.

 

But the mornings, getting to there--

It might as well be that it is

her dimpled fists that grasp the wheel 

his bejewelled eyes that watch the road.

their voices and breaths that map me

as I make my way. Make my way away.

_

NIGHT TRIPPING

Threads like

nerves like roads

like pathways

 

stars like

chinks like holes

like winks

 

children like

dolls like bodies

like souls

 

journeys like

hope like ends

like tension

 

Like like

click like love

like how

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