Our fabric is woven so tight and fine,
garments stitched up with pride—
gunbelts and helmets and gold—
We have the combinations,
watches, buttons, colored shoes.
This hat will keep you safe.
This cloak will end your pain.
See us in parade, wearing
mirrors of our own devising.
But where is the little child?
Around the next corner
on the street of clowns?
Down by the river
where improbable ducks dive
below the ice to feed?
Beneath your coat,
Last night for my dinner
I slit open a womb of squash,
scooped out the papery ivory eggs,
sliced a green-white onion body so wet and alive
the two halves would not fit tight together.
I made a salad of living things,
infants of broccoli and radish;
dressed it with the blood of olive and grape.
The boundaries are not clear.
This morning the dog dug a nest of mice
out of long grass, swallowed the babies
like little pink pills. They slid easy
down her throat: wriggling embryos
dissolving in her stomach,
becoming dog.
I commend them to their god.
I notice that nothing
is what I think:
the cat an oval with fuzzy
edges, dog tail a beret
perched on her head.
The book is narrow
as its spine. Trees
get small, the road
vanishes. Shadows
blend with teacups,
leaves twist their points
at me, every nose
is striped with white,
city roofs stack
and shade. Nothing
squares. Windows
Ostrowy, Poland.
Broken bannister painted brown.
Somewhere in Quebec:
Three-eighths mystery.
Albany, Vermont
Two sons, their separate ways.
Charlotte, Vermont.
Nothing but the garden.
Cleveland, Ohio.
Live geese in a basket;
Bavarian china on layaway.
Stowe, Vermont.
Pasture ghosts.
The wrath of trees.
Portland, Maine.
The freedom of the uniform.
She is a shadow on the grass. She
is a shadow cast by a star so plain
it bears a simple name. She is a figure
on a ground so vast that even she
can not see herself. Mosses grow under
the grasses. Stars behind the sun. Shadows
follow on, between the eastern mountains
and the field all green and yellow. And each
pebble burns its shadow, and each broken
sparrow on the road’s cold shoulder. And why
would anyone be afraid to die
against this curve of space, this ground of time?
Her breath streams a shadow through still airs.
Passing planets pull dark shadows from their stars.
To have without acquisition:
The new hat, but not on the head,
only the eye seduced with plumage.
Great Egret dressed in lace and masked in green,
Green Heron wing, Little Blue Heron blue,
Purple Gallinule: purple feathers, bill red and lavender.
Guy Bradley gave his life,
shot in the back on the shell-shored island.
Plumes worth more than gold.
Now they stand unconcerned, preening,
across the water among the trees.
Not enough water, the long grass river
not long enough,
but enough for now.
Logging, spy-hopping, bubble-netting.
You wave flipper-legs;
your breath clouds
blow in the bay.
You sound: your humpy back,
tiny hipbones hidden,
your flukes up
like splaying feet.
Your lunging,
great hungers,
mysterious love affairs.
You sing where we cannot go.
You must be awake to breathe.
Your carcass once
on a stony beach.
Baleen fabric, skull bone cave,
I didn’t much want to go,
not caring for adventure,
what to expect,
imagining
alligator attack,
drowning in deep water,
some vicious consciousness,
so far away from home.
The long train ride,
whistles in my sleep,
tug away from every thing I knew.
TEN THOUSAND ISLANDS
Because it’s tidal,
easy out toward the islands:
piles of shells in the shallows.
Mangrove roots red and tangled
Watch:
these are my words
these shapes
on the page
Watch me
tilt, orient differently--
tilt, pivot, zig zag, tilt,
give the back a break,
tilt, pivot, zig zag, tilt,
give the head a break,
tilt, pivot, zig zag, tilt,
and circle into self
to adjust placement
to start again. And
circle into self to
adjust placement to
Some days I feel like we're the bestest of friends,
Like our bond has no ends.
I feel like I could tell you everything,
Straight from the beginning.
There's no such thing as shame
Nothing such as embarrassment, and suddenly I don't feel so lame.
Sometimes I feel like it's you and me against the entire world,
And suddenly I feel less cold.
Sometimes talking to you feels like a hug or a warm embrace,
Like someone wiping the river of tears off my face.
Other days I feel like a nuisance,
But don't worry, all this was in my book of predictions.
Some days I'm scared to talk or ask you the simplest of things,
Afraid of the embarrassment it brings.
I'm slowing down my pace, for walking towards the future.
I'm trying to stand my ground but life keeps moving on.
I can't stop time.
I can't stop life.
I can't stop walking, but I can try to make the walk last.
I'm walking hand and hand with you with a smile my on face.
I'm so close to you but I feel so far from you.
I'm starting to forget you face.
I'm starting to forget your name.
I'm starting to move on.
Then suddenly I'm not holding on to your hand anymore.
I've turned one way, while you turned the other.
You're gone and I don't care.
I'm moving at my own pace trying to comprehend what's going on around me.
Then suddenly a new hand grabs mines, and we begin to walk hand and hand.
I have a new love.
i often wonder if i could do it all again
all of it
change things i've said at the wrong time to the wrong person
change things i've thought at the right time in the wrong place
change who i belonged to
changed who i wish i was
change what i have become
but if i change it then i wouldn’t have watched or read or listened to something for the first time
i wouldn't have connected those dots
i wouldn't have felt that way about something so detached from my reality
i wouldn't have felt any of it
i wouldn't have seen the first and last episode of that show and screamed at my phone when iwas fourteen
i wouldn't have listened to that song and cried under my covers at sixteen