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Onlie X

The constant X equals all variables: even strangers soon to be wonders just amount to X. Cistercians, all `sister’, in any case sexless, insist the last & best is left for X. So Wilde’s little swallow made children cry, don’t fly! But action is prayer for the poor and/or ill; just makes equal stone and…

Taking In Wash

Papa called her Pearl when he came home late, swaying as if the wind touched only him. Towards winter his skin paled, buckeye to ginger root, cold drawing the yellow out. The Cherokee in him, Mama said. Mama never changed: when the dog crawled under the stove and the back gate slammed, Mama hid the…

To The Swallows Of Viterbo

You plummeting shards of the darkness, You rising stars in the light still Fumbling for the rickety trellis Of morning, your suddenness fills The whole unsteady air with whirring Where we awaken quiet together, Breathing soundlessly, no least stirring While your wingbeats alter the weather Of daylight arriving beyond The window, quick-feathered rushing And calling…

Poem for Potential

All-sufficing person come alive again! Light’s at attention — polite at the end of the sea. High gold & celibate, a bold celestial glare — Here. Sharks in the pines, the park shines. This isn’t the only time. Once before you stood on a hill of sand — wind in your child-like hair — blowing,…

Leading The Blind

I will lead you with my dark eyes. My eyes of ash, shadow, earth. My eyes that are secrets the darkness keeps and never gives back. This is the season of night. It is the landscape of sleep, dreams, and death. We will not talk to the features of the moon. There is no way…

After The Fall

Swam a dream through the ivory gates. Eden, it was Eden, she moved in a green light not of our skies. Reality denied, her lips hid much joy.      Voices rippled      in the marvelous      garden, verse      was composed and      rehearsed.      Beasts had no      fury, fear      never entered there. In that wondrous garden God too strolled rich…

Cleaning The Fish

Mom says she won’t; we’ll have to clean them, though she used to do it when I fished with dad. Dad’s illness wore her down; I think she felt relief after he died, and didn’t mourn him long enough before she married Sam. I know there is an art to cleaning fish. In ancient times,…