Amarantha sweet and fair
Ah braid no more that shining hair!
As my curious hand or eye
Hovering round thee let it fly.
Let it fly as unconfin’ d
As its calm ravisher, the wind,
Who hath left his darling th’ East,
To wanton o’ er that spicy nest.
I’ m in the barricade hearing the clock thickening you.
Autumn encircles a confusion that’ s nothing new.
Flash back to warring eyes almost letting me drown.
Out of which, a picture of me walking in a foreign head.
I can’ t hear what you said. Then you say: Cold room,
the second that life unwinds. A tinctured vase returns
When the man behind the counter said, “You pay
by the orifice,” what could we do but purchase them all?
Ah, Sandy, you were clearly the deluxe doll, modish and pert
in your plastic nurse whites, official hostess to our halcyon days,
where you bobbed in the doorway of our dishabille apartment,
a block downwind from the stockyards. Holding court on
the corroded balcony, K. and I passed hash brownies, collecting
change for the building’ s monthly pool to predict which balcony
It is half past ten in Stonington.
The trees droop apprehensive of the heat
And the sky has turned that pale suspicious colour
That means that it cannot support more light.
Here on the terrace I and a companion
Each pretends to read. The papers say
That it is 90 in New York today.
simplicity
say sleep
or
shall we
shower
have an apple
you are
as I need
water
shall I move?
do you dream?
shallow snow
flesh
melt this
Purveyor of rot and whatnot,
entrepreneur of I forgot,
with wrists hard as hammers —
that birthmark a slot —
grip it, strip it, flip it hard —
ramp my shard.
If fear be sexy, a synch
& a match —
Gone the way of wax & worms —
gone like November 2011 —
sweet by nature, mean by culture —
“Goodbye, luck, you idiot,”
said the Fox to the Grapes.
“I love you,” replied the Grapes.
scent of myrrh on the handles
when oil is in the lock
silken is his mouth
when he is hard upon me
young heart, green bed,
his fingers are in the stream
he eats of the bitter honey
the sweetness of cherry
sacrament of the blood
and of its winding
sacrament of arrival
and of its binding
Chewing slowly,
Only after I’ d eaten
My grandmother,
Mother,
Son-in-law,
Two brothers-in-law,
And father-in-law
(His big family included)
In that order,
And had for dessert
The town’ s inhabitants,
Did I find, says Kabir,
The beloved that I’ ve become
One with.
The belt kicks on with a whir & the whir
licks the end grain of the offcut with a hint
of hesitation. A small wind of ochre dust
sweeps off the belt before the belt comes back
to where it was. The whole room swells
with the scent of cinnamon & desire.
How imprecise the smell of desire.
The wood takes on a sheen, a gloss
the grain can live behind without worry
of being forgotten. A single knot blinks
out of the small block and becomes
If you sleep the night inside someone, her cells,
saltwater-stained, fuse with yours like the blood of twins.
Apes in Mauritania grow stronger, Galileo tells us,
influenced by the sphere of angels.
Here, then — thumbnail sketches
for zoning changes along the riparian bank
of the species boundary, for a chimera.
Like fiber optics, human nerves
lay along glassy bone & spinal veins of a fetal mouse
that will be drowned before ever waking.
