One hundred breaths split the air
as I lean
on the only pine tree I find.
It’s early or late, it’s breezy or hot.
The fields are dry. Summer is near.
The horses are everywhere,
strangely galloping a dream,
but I can’t remember
how to call them,
so I stand back, watch them pass.
History can't be rushed.
We didn't have time to see the village,
we didn't have time to see the house fall
to build light out of mud,
nor did we see time burning.
The city is missing,
and we've saved others,
our backs turned.
What happened
is a different reality in everyone's mind,
but the direction we took
tells us the world doesn't end
when we force air out of bones.
Now we know the myth
by the cup of coffee going cold,
realize we were never told
how to take
We say lightning has no wings
when it slides down our houses
We say loss is just a condition
we acquire to bury our pity further
We say the bleeding hands
on the table filled with red wine
imported products and passports
are just reminders of
who we have become
We have no titles no birthright
no groves or Shakespeare
to return to
We apologize for the fear
growing out of our ribs
Apologize for the numbers
still etched on our tongues
The man moves earth
to dispel grief.
He digs holes
the size of cars.
In proportion to what is taken
what is given multiplies —
rain-swollen ponds
and dirt mounds
rooted with flame-tipped flowers.
He carries trees like children
struggling to be set down.
Trees that have lived
out their lives,
he cuts and stacks
like loaves of bread
which he will feed the fire.
The green smoke sweetens
his house.
I just didn’t get it —
even with the teacher holding an orange (the earth) in one hand
and a lemon (the moon) in the other,
her favorite student (the sun) standing behind her with a flashlight.
I just couldn’t grasp it —
this whole citrus universe, these bumpy planets revolving so slowly
no one could even see themselves moving.
I used to think if I could only concentrate hard enough
I could be the one person to feel what no one else could,
sense a small tug from the ground, a sky shift, the earth changing gears.
While the man is away
telling his wife
about the red-corseted woman,
the woman waits
on the queen-sized bed.
You'd expect her quiet
in the fist of a copper
statue. Half her face,
a shade of golden meringue,
the other half, the dark
of cattails. Her mouth even —
too straight, as if she doubted
her made decision, the way
women do. In her hands,
a yellow letter creased,
like her hunched back.
Her dress limp on a green chair.
In front, a man's satchel
and briefcase. On a dresser,
How will it taste — the beer the gravedigger
will drink after bestowing your dirt coat?
What will he say — you keeled the outrigger
too south, & when the breakers rolled, no boats
heard your Mayday? & will he ask his friends
at the bar — if someone calls a Mayday
& there is no one at the other end
of any radio, did Kevin A.
González really exist? O second
person, what would you do without you? Where
would Kevin A. González hide? Our bond
is over. The red of the rockets’ glare
The message I found on the Post-it note
went thus: love truth; expect to be found out.
Kid-style capitals proved I wrote it, but
left no clue why I'd swelled into a fat
clause no editor could edit; then, an entry
on a shrink's list of patient slang for sex —
her desk Norwegian teak, the mug of tea
on which she had affixed her Post-it notes
hot against her knuckle, their lips of stickum
loosening... And yet, I knew the note
to peel away at hour's end would terminate
our sessions — cool as the draft her linen
If no one ever marries me, —
And I don't see why they should,
For nurse says I'm not pretty,
And I'm seldom very good —
If no one ever marries me
I shan't mind very much;
I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,
And a little rabbit-hutch:
I shall have a cottage near a wood,
And a pony all my own,
And a little lamb quite clean and tame,
That I can take to town:
And when I'm getting really old, —
At twenty-eight or nine —
I shall buy a little orphan-girl
And bring her up as mine.
Our business is with fruit and leaf and bloom;
though they speak with more than just the season's tongue —
the colours that they blaze from the dark loam
all have something of the jealous tang
of the dead about them. What do we know of their part
in this, those secret brothers of the harrow,
invigorators of the soil — oiling the dirt
so liberally with their essence, their black marrow?
But here's the question. Are the flower and fruit
held out to us in love, or merely thrust
up at us, their masters, like a fist?
