I want to talk to ghosts. Where are they in this county. Over the red grass, under the rancher motels. To freefall through their gorgeous startling souls, released from time. My rearview mirror goes dark. I’m not afraid. Death is the instant of perfected memory. It seems just like the present tense, just like life,…
1968: For you, sitting in a barracks in Okinawa, the war is over. You are quiet, as if experiencing silence for the first time. You don't know what to do. Stare at your hands. From the barracks sergeant you obtain the name of a place where you can be washed and massaged. You go there…
The rooms where you entertained me are open to view And expensive now. But I’m drawn that way. The sea steps ashore up wide ascents of marble. Corinthian columns ruffle like bedclothes. Rough side of a towel, smooth side of silk. Your mare’s-tails unravel, and cloud the royal blue. A brown Raleigh three-speed. A wide-tired…
I am the tuck of turquoise water, the slap of spray on ocean rocks. I am the boat, the effort of her engines, the voice of the captain pointing out the woman whipped against the cliff by wind, her red cap. I am the trails of bindweed at her feet, the labyrinth of roots. I…
One glimpse—that’s all, then in no time flat, Coyote’s beguiled, spit-shine kempt: cologne-scented singer, bouquet-bringer, acrobatic twister into arabesques: What can I change? What’s the sure-fire ingredient? How many howls make a billet-doux? Good luck, sings the swan-white moon, good luck and let me know— No desert…
At sixteen, I worked after high school hours at a printing plant that manufactured legal pads: Yellow paper stacked seven feet high and leaning as I slipped cardboard between the pages, then brushed red glue up and down the stack. No gloves: fingertips required for the perfection of paper, smoothing the exact rectangle. Sluggish by…
Every day, whether we realize it or not, we choose one of two stars to guide us, a star as ephemeral as our life, a star water can wash away. One star is made of packed sugar, the other of packed salt. Water melts both. If we choose the star of sugar we will follow…
I am struggling with the first line. No, those words will not fit in my mouth. Language is neutral, the speaker is not. I can start fire with words, the pen is like a boxer’s gloves. I could dance this tropical dance with you, but my eyes are watching the lines carved underneath your eyes…
Nights standing in a field or sleeping under the stars, I sense that one of those pebbles of light must be signaling me from deep space. I know this is no more than my own longing cast like fishing line into the depths of another kind of ocean, and that my aloneness is reflected in…
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