We wash up side by side
to find each other
in the speakable world,
and, lulled into sense,
inhabit our landscape;
the curve
of that chair draped
with your shirt;
my glass of water
seeded overnight with air.
After this bed
there’ ll be another,
so we’ ll roll
and keep rolling
until one of us
will roll alone and try to roll
the other back — a trick
no one’ s yet pulled off —
and it’ ll be
as if I dreamed you, dear,
Only this boy moves
between the runes of trees
on his tricycle
when an eagle swoops,
releases two arrows
from its silver wings, and melts
away faster than lightning.
Then a loud whistle
and a bang like dry thunder.
In a blink the boy sees
his house roof sink.
Feels his ears ripped off.
The blast puffs up a fawn smoke
bigger than a mountain cloud.
The slow begonias rattle
their scarlet like confetti.
Metal slashes
the trees and ricochets.
Wires and pipes snap
One way to draw France is in scallops:
Dunkirk to Brest,
Brest to Saint-Jean-de-Luz,
The imperceptible stone sag
of certain dolmens
over the Pyrenees between Saint-Jean
& Banyuls-sur-Mer
Then, to Nice
Nice, skirting the Alps to Lauterbourg
From Lauterbourg back
to where you began
For the meticulous,
the additions of Cherbourg, Toulon, &
even Le Havre,
Maybe Givet
Yours is a green diorama
It contains several kilowatts of sun,
a superabundance of flowers
There are eyes, glasses even, but still he can’ t see
what the world sees seeing him.
They know an image of him they themselves created.
He knows his own: fine-lined from foot to finger,
each limb adjusted, because it’ s had to,
to achieve finally flight —
I
here I’ m here I’ m here I’ m
here here here here cricket
pulse — the katydidic tick
(and then a pause) tick
(and then a pause) in greening trees — tales
of a gratitude for water, the hollyhock’ s
trumpet Yes, Tenderness
her glove and hoe — her bad trip
love/grief, her medic tent
talking me down, kissed fissures
in the world’ s despair, what I’ d
loved — alive for a while — a day called
Rip and Brood, a day called
Glorious Hour, the long hunt and the worm found
I like to lie with you wordless
on black cloud rooft beach
in late june 5 o’ clock tempest
on clump weed bed with sand
fitting your contours like tailor made
and I like to wash my summer brown face
in north cold hudson rapids
with octagon soap
knees niched in steamy rocks
where last night’ s frog stared
at our buddhist sleep
but most of all I like to see
the morning happen...
Immersed
we don’ t
ask
who entered
whose stream.
Take
my hand there
is no
line no
bridge only
fond
foolishness —
the bread
crumbs I
bring you
in
morning —
they float
on the
surface
water with
two
violins
un-
strung like
the silent
song
on your
lips soft
as the
same
hands I
crushed to
keep
you from
death.
I saw I dreamt
Two men hoisted hung up not American the rope
Not closed on their breathing
But this rope tied them spine to spine somehow
Suspended
From the mood of a tree not American they were
African Ugandan Nigerian
Without a license a right to touch
The sin their touching incites
And I heard their names called out Revision
Or Die and You Must Repent
And Forget the Lie you Lily-Boys you Faggots
Called up from the mob
a face stares back.
across the hostile centuries.
add a twist — delicious.
and never feel a thing.
commercial — added stretch to every gesture.
how it is made.
I almost admire it. I almost wrote despise.
I’ d be all give. Let me put it like this==
in the nocturnal, recessed bed==
of nettles.
resembles the bird it will fly into.
Right now I’ m trying to open wide.
she turns to a tree.
she would be neither-nor.
smoky field.
that is space.
the bride.
For your birthday, I’ m learning to pop champagne corks
with a cossack sword when all you asked for was world peace.
I’ m actioning the deliverables to wish you many happy returns
of the ecstasies that are imminent when all you requested
was a contentment so quiet it’ s inaudible. Remember when
I gave you a robe of black silk that floats and does not rustle?
When all you desired was to turn from what was finished and hard
