Men & Women

All my stories are about being left,
all yours about leaving. So we should have known.
Should have known to leave well enough alone;
we knew, and we didn’ t. You said let’ s put
our cards on the table, your card
was your body, the table my bed, where we didn’ t
get till 4 am, so tired from wanting
what we shouldn’ t that when we finally found our heads,
we’ d lost our minds. Love, I wanted to call you
so fast. But so slow you could taste each
letter licked into your particular and rose-like ear.

In case you sit across from the meteorologist tonight,
and in case the dim light over the booth in the bar still shines
almost planetary on your large, smooth, winter-softened
forehead, in case all of the day — its woods and play, its fire —
has stayed on your beard, and will stay through the slight
drift of mouth, the slackening of even your heart's muscle —
... well. I am filled with snow. There's nothing to do now
but wait.

I know I promised to stop
talking about her,
but I was talking to myself.
The truth is, she’ s a child
who stopped growing,
so I’ ve always allowed her
to tag along, and when she brings
her melancholy close to me
I comfort her. Naturally
you’ re curious; you want to know
how she became a gnarled branch
veiled in diminutive blooms.
But I’ ve told you all I know.
I was sure she had secrets,
but she had no secrets.
I had to tell her mine.

Sometimes in time’ s near
unassailable sangfroid there is
a thawing
& the memory
asserts its musicality again

reminds one that it is at heart
heart’ s artificer

* * *

Somewhere in Okinawa there are stairs

“My husband is the only
constant in”

are concrete stairs that lead one
(or at least led me, age six)
near straight from top to bottom of a cliff face
& they ended in a black-sand beach

I

I’ ve felt undeserving. I’ ve made myself ill with the glory,
in the unleavened garden
disgorged the lies and scared away with a stick a snake.
What made me cover that which I could not have?

I’ ve grieved and walked in catacombs,
I’ ve felt undeserving. I’ ve made myself ill with the glory.
Even the falling leaves gesture their renunciation.
I disgorge the lies and abhor the serpent’ s hiss.

You, functional space
variants in voltage, the only light
Transitory effect of Love
several different lights
Sustain
Sustain them
you sustain them.

We sat across the table.
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things.
they might touch me.
I said yes.

Food grew cold on the table.
he said, burn your body.
it is not clean and smells like sex.
it rubs my mind sore.
I said yes.

I love you, I said.
That’ s very nice, he said
I like to be loved,
that makes me happy.
Have you cut off your hands yet?

Because I am not married, I have the skin of an orange

that has spent its life in the dark. Inside the orange I am blind.
I cannot tell when a hand reaches in and breaks

the atoms of the blood. Sometimes a blackbird will bring the wind

into my hair. Or the yellow clouds falling on the cold floor
are animals fighting each other

out of their drifting misery. All the women I have known

have been ruined by fog and the deer crossing the field at night.

She always got mad at him
every time he came home in the middle of the morning
with his pant legs wet.
She knew he had fallen in the ditch again.
His legs were not strong enough to be straddling ditches.
He was too old to be walking over temporary dikes.
She wished he didn’ t do that, but sometimes he had to.
She sometimes imagined him falling over backward in one of the irrigation ditches,
his head hitting hard cement,
his body slowly sinking into the water.
Water that was only three feet deep.

I
Every day it is the same.
He comes home.
He tells her about it.
As he speaks, his breath condenses in front of his face.
She goes about her business;
every now and then she looks over.
She doesn’ t hear his voice.
She sees the soft fog that continues to form a halo.
She knows he is still talking about that place.
He never tires of it like she does.
Only on summer days when the air is hot
and moisture is still a long time in coming,
she asks him to tell her about that place.
She sits facing him.