Of this great voiceless love of mine for you
There is no word to your heart out of mine
That may go winging through the whispering night.
Look only then for laughter in my letters
As I from day to day The Fool rehearse.
And if one blushing phrase too boldly written
Inscribes too fervently that I am yours,
Believe it only penmanship and style,
Or the careless informality of friends.
I am my home,
my real estate.
Memory contests the deed
and title, would
force me to live
in recall, a phantom
condominium of fate.
I am the shack
of me, a self with rooms,
a past out back,
an attic that looms,
a pantry with brooms.
This is why blankets
at 4:13 a.m. feel
(why rain badgering
roof over the roof
Geranium blouse blossoms
under sodium glow.
Mascara smile masks
her feelings, her tears
transparent as rain.
Sidewalk puddles frown
as neon rainbows kiss
her stiletto shoes.
She paces the track,
marking the boundaries of
consent, on slender tanned
stems turning to watch
headlights beam like a
flower following the sun.
dense night fog
the clear space around
an old barn
even after closing
the bedroom drapes
full November moon
It felt like death,
dressed for a night out.
I still can’t breathe.
Pulling the last shade
of night heading south ,
a million starlings.
Traveling through
the long winter nights
at the speed of dark.
And so you woke and wondered
and were afraid last night alone
pitched into considerations of who and if
and if there is a home
any are quiet in.
“It is sincerely to be hoped
that these childish recycles of worry
won’t be repeated often.”
The windows are tin.
There has been no rain in Tokyo for 57 days.
The city, you are told, is like a tinder box.
You fool romantics dwell
on painful, passionate ends.
She knows the weeds will win. Sometimes, at night,
Hearing them grow in her dreams, she'll wake, grasp
Even in her two hands, a phantom thistle, or
Knotweed, errant blackberry, or teasel.
Now not able to turn and sleep, she'll rise, throw
On her robe, and step out into night;
Walking the way the slim moon shows her,
She throws aside her garden gate and listens.
There might be corn and tomatoes chatting,
Having about as much to say as farmed things.
Even a whisper among the kales and chard --
Whatever such things say. Beyond are beds
Ensnarled in dock, barnyardgrass, bindweed,
Everlasting morning glory vines.
Dire straits; but there's no sound there.
She knows they're biding their time,
Round the circle of her garden she walks, and stops
again, taking in, as one absent from her own
senses yet unwilling to forgo their gifts,
the half-dimmed light of a low, prepubescent
moon, its influence on lingering clouds,
some few stars brave enough to compete with
mercury vapor or halogen or tungsten,
and taking in also the pungent garlic border,
its enclosure of bean vines, celery, snap peas:
celebratory things, even in this half-light,
this dew of forgotten hours. Her feet,
though well shod, warn her of night, by noting
slow seep of dew round toes and heels.
Her hand, brushing wet night-blooming
jasmine, shrinks from chill. These, and trees
she has encouraged -- apple, plum, pear, cherry,
A bell and rattle,
a smell of roses,
a leather Bible,
and angry voices . . .
They say, I love you.
They shout, You must!
The light is telling
terrible stories.
But night at the window
whispers, Never mind.
Be true, be true
to your own strange kind.