Relationships

I was looking for your hair,
black as old lava on an island
of white coral. I dreamed it
deserted you and came for me,
wrapped me in its funeral ribbons
and tied me a bow of salt.

Our embrace lasted too long.
We loved right down to the bone.
I hear the bones grind, I see
our two skeletons.

Now I am waiting
till you leave, till
the clatter of your shoes
is heard no more. Now, silence.

Let us tunnel
Through the rubble,

Through the thrum.
Let us rut through the sum

Of who we were,
Or are,

Or will be in the years to come:
A couple

Of someones
Who used to be in love.

Used to be in love.
Ho. Hum.

These days: Seem to be in hate.
Gypsum, marble, pyrite, slate.

See here. A pit of snakes.
Look there. The rock of your rages.

And I’ m in a cable-cage, slinking down your shaft.
You fondle that hefty What if...? as if

White hail pelting the frozen bog,
I’ m stuck in the first line of January,
following my host’ s dog
on his walk through the stone century,
around the quarry, slices of marble and mud,
past a herd of miners exhaling smoke,
past a barn smelling of merde,
and back to where I’ m stuck and broke.
The fucking dog barks at the night,
mad at the stars all his life and then again.
I rethink kicking him out,
but being cool, I let him in.

You could grow into it,
that sense of living like a dog,
loyal to being on your own in the fur of your skin,
able to exist only for the sake of existing.

Amongst dogs are listeners and singers.
My big dog sang with me so purely,
puckering her ruffled lips into an O,
beginning with small, swallowing sounds
like Coltrane musing, then rising to power
and resonance, gulping air to continue —
her passion and sense of flawless form —
singing not with me, but for the art of dogs.
We joined in many fine songs — "Stardust,"
"Naima," "The Trout," "My Rosary," "Perdido."
She was a great master and died young,
leaving me with unrelieved grief,
her talents known to only a few.

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

I Amidah

Hear my personal prayer, the words of my mouth and the meditation
of my heart that I may find a way back through love
In the hospital roompacked in blood-soaked cottonthe new mother lay
animal-exhaustedtechnicians whisked the child awayin the first
hours there was fear O teach me to withhold judgment

Sweetheart
when you break thru
you’ ll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.

I won’ t promise
you’ ll never go hungry
or that you won’ t be sad
on this gutted
breaking
globe

but I can show you
baby
enough to love
to break your heart
forever

For months my daughter carried
a dead monarch in a quart mason jar.
To and from school in her backpack,
to her only friend’ s house. At the dinner table
it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast.
She took it to bed, propped by her pillow.