Fragment 1

Singing you who have lost it

tell me where you will find it

 

Inside his chest

the chirp of birds

inside his breath

 needles of air

_

Time was / Time is past

delight wheels like prayer

flinging night like doubt

on the parapet of dawn

our details are all spent

Nine

She knows that

the child and his friend

--another child--

read her words.

 

She hides small

messages

of hope

and love

 

Hardy as pebbles

as natural

shaking like leafy hands

on summer trees.

_

To the Sea

Water alive with the shuffle of crabs

my body rolled over by the waves

then cleaned to sea change

grotesque as rags,

familiar as reeds

coral laced up by eels

 

But brilliant showers

of triumph

of clarinet

Of abruptness--

steps missed in the dark.

Then the piano bares its teeth.

_

Dicta

Trees suffer

this year’s work

to fall to the ground

leaves curl and cup

like beggar palms

Even their fruit

rotates rotten

but the seed inside

clear, the future.

 

But really

you know

even balloons,

birth-day

party streamers

sometimes die

with the slow

delicate agony

of flowers

Mother

She never fails to mention

that the child is adopted.

Snows translucent as sleep.

 

Her secret about wanting to die

swims in her breath

a sly brutal eel,

 

reclines in her

motherhood

while

all she does

in the daytime

is wait for night.

 

Her bewildered pleasure

in the alchemy of these children

in these precise children

such inaccurate precis of her

of the signs of competence

she generates, grows

_

My Practice

Lights are

ecstatic explosions

lights

turn on with soft blinks

 

And rain so hard

it makes muddy

flesh wounds

in the earth

 

And us,

telling stories

impassionate as

furniture listings

 

on Craigslist.

Turning,

running

gone.

_