The Weather Changed

The weather changed
from that cold sunlight
babies in palm frond hats
crying girls
starfish hands & painted buckets

filled with sealight & breaking
glass possibilities
We woke with salt lips
lust a silica statement
gritty & sifting
in every crevice, in my long hair

Now jars of beach glass
smooth edges
grown children
I don't show the scars.

Love the Crevice

In this insistent summer light
I am rehearsing adultery, the naked
sun heating your bare legs. Yes, all night

your wife has covered you. The lake
seems very pure now, our children floating
on bits of rubber, bright as sucked

candies. The sweetness isn't faked, but
don't trust me here. The snowmelt
brings flood again this year, scouring

the last rare flowers from the edge.
Love, the crevice is very near. Falling
still I watch your mouth, your beautiful

slipping feet

To Give Everything Away

Perpetual beginner, it was love
you wanted to tie to all the worlds

patterns of fir trees & sunlight
running stitches & knots

donkeys browsing the hearts
of thistles. You sewed certainty

across the lifelines of your children
the prayer rugs of desire

At this distance we can cover
everything with our outstretched hands

the moon, the home, a childhood
of whispered secrets, oh goodbye

we learn to give everything away
here on these moving waters


Last summer I thought I'd tuck many of my poems here--and then we moved the shop, and then my computer died, and my files were lost...Time intercedes, life crowds in. It's been...3 years? 4? since my sister-outlaw died, telling me with her last breaths that it was all okay, it was all right, and how beautiful the flowers were.

SUMMER VACATION

In dreams I go back

The fence posts peeling in my hands

hollyhocks with their spired yarns.

Lamplight. A scrawny cousin calls us in

free. I do not run.

The cedared doves ask

how much how much how much

They are fat with dark, with cherries

Moths beat out their lives

against the screen

Inside our aunts play gin

& Brahms & you

push back your skim milk hair

to read aloud

from books of maps & tourist lures:

o welcome to the heart

this old poem of mine was published long, long ago by George Hitchcock in kayak

IF THIS WORLD WERE THE BOOK

When I came back from the far country

your gold beneath my tongue, yes

I fell again to loving

all the first things. I saw

through my half open door

the white lilacs glowing, entire

tangled constellations of lovers

clustered on each branch, and

through the windows of your body

my dear hell or that lost map

to heaven. I surrender, my life.

Stay me here with plain words.

If this world were the book

I have been reading

over & over I was only

looking for that turned & returned

story: lovers, gold, the simple rain

my body the page you print yourself upon

BROKEN DAYLIGHT HOLDS THE FULL SPECTRUM

The fabric stretched at last

& tore, that patterned silk

When I open my hands

no one is hastening

in risk of rain or traffic

to come to me

Instead this expectation

of disappearance only

a list of what we see & lose

in the refugee summer

when the street names

are on my tongue like dark

honey, wine, & peeled almonds

I remember

your body’s comfort

the bones beneath the skin

IN THIS AUTUMN LIGHT

I wanted only good news, angels

from a blue sky, gentle

rain on my face: your intelligent fingers

I wanted news from all

directions, silver papers full of stars

confetti & confections & all signs

declaring Yes

pure happiness is possible

clear as a cup of spring

water, inevitable & shining

but my astrologer never visits me

& mail, all purple stamps & promises

takes a wandering course

through the countries of despair

& desire’s canyons. My first love

writes from Paris “Le Volcan is still

here, & the bakeries & gleaming

fruit stands” He sucks the sweet

pulp of blood oranges

in the cool Parisian sunlight, his love

squinting for the camera, juice

running through their fingers. “Yes

hold it!” I call across the oceans

“it is too precious to throw away”

meaning orange juice mornings & wishes

true love, hope, & all the heart’s

brave confidence in this temporary life.

With chemo her long bright hair falls

Across my bed I scatter all the cards

like the blackbirds’ flight through morning

I long to read your face

to learn the transient & lovely

blaze of fully greedy bodies

in this autumn light. More rain.

No news, my life, from you.

So, no, it isn't really autumn. But with the fires burning all around me as I type, it does feel like a smoke filled, hot early autumn day. Rain would be good.

IN THE PARKING LOT OF DEATH

For H.S.

My beautiful daughter stands

like a painting by Rosetti, red hair

stealing the light by the stars

of the Chinese mallow, blooming

even in the parking lot of death

this sullen century. She is

a generous lantern, here in

the troubled garden, young as we were

in the Asian war when we loved

each other in innocence & lust.

It’s a long time, decades

like told beads, & you watching now

by the body of a dying woman

by the breaking of the bones

by her disconcerted living & her

morphined dreams, by her pain

crying, by her scarred & tender skin

by her lists of doctors & the light

of morning, by her windows of departure

by the sparrows of kindness

by the small leaves falling

by your hungry soul, by the questions

of wires, by the tubes of desire

by the circles of the final flights

& see, here, beyond us all

in this moment

the blue heron still spreads out her wings

like a last breath

never published, not one of my best, though I like some of the lines in it well enough; it was framed as a passing prayer for a first love who was at the time watching his companion die a long and slow death. Oddly, when I sat with another dear love a few years later, helping her make her own passage, I told her when she wondered if she could do it, if she could die, that as the moment came she would have no trouble. "You will just lift away, as the herons do" I said. As she passed I had stepped out with her dog, to allow her daughter to be with her at that last moment. The dog and I walked by the river, where as the sun set and we turned to come back a heron lifted up, stretching its beautiful wings, and I said goodbye to my dear friend.