Southern

I am not asleep, but I see
a limb, the fingers of death, the ghost
of an anonymous painter
leaving the prints of death
on the wall; the bright feathers
of soft birds blowing
away in the forest;
the bones of fish and
the white backs of strange women;
your breathing
like the slow thunder
on the other side of some river
as you sleep beside me; old
dancing teachers weeping in their offices;
toads with bellies as quiet
as girls asleep in mansions, dreaming
of saddles and pulling the sheets

A white bull, a cassock, an antique mirror
The famous ones have passed hours in front of,
A midnight blue tuxedo, a fainting couch, a key
To a box of lewd photographs, a swastika,
Twelve bales of hay, three grave plots, a statue
Of Christ holding a heart pierced by a dagger,
A black patch, all kinds of utensils for the sick —
Including thirty-nine feet of catheter tubing,
A houseboat, a dog, a baby grand, an oar
Said to have been carved from a lovely river
And a woman’ s hat by Alfred Jarry, a mattress,

Sometimes in our sleep we touch
The body of another woman
And we wake up
And we know the first nights
With summer visitors
In the three storied house of our childhood.
Whatever we remember,
The darkest hair being brushed
In front of the darkest mirror
In the darkest room.

Man is so afraid, he look down at cock, long ago many
centuries ships land on the enemy’ s beach, take down
mast in the dark, climb up cliffs in the fog, ram
enemy’ s door, do bad things in castle, oh yea, man
go crazy play in blood like baby with duck in bathtub,
man think about favorite dog, got worms in heart, takes
dog to field trial, dog sniffs out man’ s lies, point
at fool in frozen water, fool man, dead dog, man look
at leaf frozen in pond, man think about woman in new

He startled to see a statue of blind
justice really did loom over the courtroom. But
remained determined to scorn symbolism.
She needed a quarter to call her lover —
the docket was full, she’ d be late for lunch —
and he gave her one. It was not a taunt,
acquiescence, wager, or plea. It was
a quarter. The fact that they had done this —
even this! — together and cordially,

Each morning in the little white cabin
by the river they woke to a raccoon
clawing under the floorboards or banging
in the wood stove. They did not discuss this.
Instead they said it was a perfect day
to pick blueberries on the hill, or that
a hike to the old glassworks sounded good.

The one cashier is dozing —
head nodding, slack mouth open,
above the cover girl spread out before her on the counter
smiling up
with indiscriminate forgiveness
and compassion for everyone
who isn’ t her.

Without intending to hide,
the imagined copperhead
hid on the path ahead,
unseen on bronze leaves, unheard,
and a mortal likelihood
at every step. This was childhood,
mine, the wood’ s jihad
against a boy who’ d
intruded among monkshood,
wasp, tick, and nettles haired
with needles. Scrub brush abhorred
him with a horde
of  welts, bites, and stings, but he’ d
never seen a copperhead,
though he’ d looked hard

Half  awake, I was imagining
a friend’ s young lover, her ash blonde hair, the smooth
taut skin of  twenty. I imagined her
short legs and dimpled knees.
The door scraped open,
but eyes closed, I saw nothing. The mattress sagged.
She laid her head on my chest, and murmured love
against my throat, almost humming, approaching song,
so palpable I could hold her only chastely,
if  this was chaste. I couldn’ t move my hand

In her hand the knife, brisk, brilliant as moon-claw,
shaves the flesh. It grazes the white
belly just over the heart.
Underneath, the coiled fingers
are cradling a soft flesh
as if it were the jowls of the aged

man propped for a while on the bench in the park.
The head is not severed, the eyes not out.
Blue, they appear to flash odd ways
where a tree makes a live shadow.
Mostly the eyes are dead.
Nothing is in them