NOW THE BODY IS FOUND

Now the body is found

I want to change the ending, blue

veins scribbled on her skin

that final note. Erase

the story: a girl runs

the highway of heat & longing

You can smell the diesel

& the unripe fruit, hard bitten plums

I want to start over.

She puts on her pink sweater

to go home, not this sprawled

star, green car speeding

the happy radio loud, no racket of grief

2.

Take away the crying

mother & the tables of wilted flowers

Set the clocks back

Tape their clanging mouths

We have too many broken wishes

Even the newspapers fly away

magpies of joy & sorrow

We could say she ran inside, thirsty

Not a drop spilled

3.

He thought he’d cut their throats.

The jukebox had bright rows

of lights, like the ones that blind

the deer, so softly stepping

in the background of the printed forest.

You know terrible things

happen. The moon still rises

her scarred face desperate

as any opened heart

THE TRAGEDY ISN’T THIS RENDING OF THE HEART

The tragedy isn’t this rending of the heart

sleepless nights, torn letters

& all the pretty adulteries, the parts

we posed & held, the crying kids, the wife

understanding no one. All this life

of call & response, call, no response

all this life of screeching tires

& someone else is leaving, launched

into thin air, into that broken fire

It’s not the aching & the rut, the honey

edged knife, but that we tire

of it all, & turn, & wash the stains

laundering passion, ironing out grief

It’s that we sit here, eyes on the blue screen

& yawn, & stumble to our dreams,

ready to sleep, & when we touch now

my heart is steady, the curtains drawn