Poetry

Logic—my    father’s    logic    diedJune 24, 2009, in bright daylight.Murdered   in   the   afternoon.   Ihung  up  Missing  Person  postersof   myself   and   listened   for   thesound    of    a    tree    falling.   Thesound  of  the  wind  through  treesis  called  psithurism.  There’s  noword  for  the  translator  of  wind.If the wind is words, the trees areexclamation points. The spears ofmoonlight,  question   marks.   Myfather  doesn’t   realize   his  wordsalways end in prepositions. I havea  problem  with [the moon], thereis  a  problem  between [the  moonand  me],  the  problem  is  on [themoon]. What  if  he  can  no  longerfind   what  is  being  modified,  inthe way snow…

For the band of panicked street cats               lapping spoiled soup I’d discarded                                             at the base of what I only knew               to call a Mexican rose, and for you, of course,                              dawdling on the lawn, bent over                                             a Walmart telescope, in search ofstars that are remotest—Andromeda’s                                                            cities, the vaporous                                             shimmering that was the first star               of Ophiuchus, which even by then was gone,…

Civility—died  on  June  24, 2009, atthe age of 68. Murdered by a strokewhose    paintings    were     recentlyfeatured  in  a  museum,  two  whitesquare  canvases,  black  scissors  inthe  middle  of  each,  open,  pointingat   each   other.   After   my   father’sstroke,     my    mother    no     longerspoke  in  full   sentences. Fragmentsof  codfish,  the  language  of  savages,each   syllable   a   mechanical   dartfrom   her   mouth.   Maybe   this   iswhat     happens     when     languagefails,  a  last  breath  inward  but  nobreath  outward.  A  state  of  holdingone’s  breath  forever  but  not  dying.When     her     lungs     began     theirfailing,  she …

I have been living           despite myselfmy territory hemmed by mud and threatof mud          If there is a land without its ownsubliminal violences          this night offers nodefense of what has died in it          Some thingsare only nourished in a stutter of kudzuand the inconsistencies of silver the moonshucks off           Casual machines honey the darkwith the monotony of their health…

I’m enthralled by a cartoon’s coercion. Behind me, seen in the television’s reflection—exaggerated colors, animations—children whisperingbeside the slumbered old menthat gravel-in-teeth language: fuck, shit. I still yearn for youth, to imagine algorithms of birds,waddling outside on the lawn, the boys chasingfeathers, and the girls braiding a mother’s dahliain a beast’s night-black wings. Ah!—there’s the dawn-touch…

Bit by bit I’ll go on surviving. Love like the sheets tumbled soft. Miles of snow outside Lisbon. Before turning the camera to the window, Soon, I’ll let you go. They say that love continues. That the ghosts or angels will usher us home. February again, & the table begs for fruit. And what do…

By which I mean I look like that flower that fireworks in mid-sentencein the sky, over the end of a sweaty ball game. The crowd makes its wayto their cars while popcorn-spill & multicolored chocolate candies meltinto concrete steps. Maybe I mean you make me want to livebeachfront—so I can taste the salt & cliff-twist…

Georgia, forgive me. For years I’ve carried this grief like a hoop of bone, framing everything I see: fragments of water, fragments of earth. No visible wound, no body  to bury, no song for safe passage to whatever the next world brings. I must be the only person here not asking, Where are the flowers? Fuck the flowers, those…

Humpbacks in journey rendered,          in Eastern Australian watersan Indian Ocean air. How pleading           tones jump across continents intorivers of sound scientists call non-          human revolution, perplexes. Perhaps a singer lost course and migrated          east from Antarctic feeding grounds.Did whitecaps trick or force; before           he forged a life worth its music? Hisvoice haunts night-oceans in silver;          intones his own dialect…