Into the clearing of . . . she climbed and stood up from the black boots of her blackouts into her body. The coat wept upon her shoulder, it hung upon her, a carcass heavy on a hook, and in the sockets of the buttonholes the buttons lolled and looked. As she climbed into that…
A large steel knife hovers above Main Street. All night it goes house to house, poking its glowing eye through each roof in its turn. It looks in on the accountant, sleeping fingers tabulating debt on a quilt. The chief of police is safely asleep with his secretary. It was never about love. Grandmother’s in…
The best boys were called: to buck hay till age seventy-five, to castrate a steer & rescue a breach-birth calf under a dusty light bulb, father eight or ten daughters & whip sense into their heads (their character would be their dowry), & one smoking bull of a son, inhale a cyclone …
I found my way back by grief scent and smoke to the daughter’s voice from the father’s mouth. This time you asked that I step outside my body though not far enough to fall into the abyss of night or near the flames that ringed the bed. I couldn’t say, “Go away” because the dead…
What ghost threw my hand across my face? He roamed my sleep in that room dark under pines. Another cried softly for an hour, till comforted. Lakes, mansion, woods, studios— all of it loss and the love of art. Mornings I’d stare at an old story: the touring car draped in a tarp,…
Since you ask: In the walls Of my country lie buried Patrons of the arts; In the floors are prisoners Who stole bread. The sky So close—or I am tall— I have to duck. My wide Cravats flutter In my face. I’m sorry, This is a love letter With a touch of a limp. I…
You will grow up to be a restless man with cold hands and a hard-to-reach heart the gypsy woman told me as she opened my palm. I was seventeen then, my hands unmapped, my heart as inaccessible as Tibet. A soap opera played soundlessly on the TV in…
All Winter I’ve Waiteds. The Then You Came Backs. Wands. Wounds. Tarot Cups. Lisps. Strapless Dresses. Sylvia Tears. Conjugations. Anne Frank’s Looms. Another Man Done Gone. Kleenex After Sex. Mrs. Manner’s Accidents. The How Funerals. The Greedy Toos. Freaks. The What Happens Every Afternoon. The Purple Spot on My Neck. The Eye Tricks. Children’s Bibles….
Now on this table a small bowl of salt, and I think of the lagoon, quiet at midnight, in moonlight, you in that doorway, your sarong a flare: if I needed you you were there, offering. The body is water and salt. A breathing sea. Why do we think we know better than the body?…
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