You showed me the dissolution of desire

You showed me the dissolution of desire
your unstrung body scattered on the waters
I have been falling for a long time

here, & without you, in this vertebraic land
rain as a rosary against my breast
& my heart its own drum. You gave

your skin to light the numbered passions
your hair for the warmth of sparrows
your blood for the orchards flowering &

at last the bitten apples, at last
the naked tree
this solitude of bone

2.

Is death a permanent address?
I thought the country visible
just beyond those blue hills. There were deer

wearing the sunlight to keep warm
there were the lost children of the bobcat
The creeks pulsed with minnows

the ridge with small paws & ripples
I would give my heart here, a glad lantern
a cup of succor

to know the path where all I have loved
keeps vanishing

3.
Yes, grief moved like the mist
over the yellow hills of summer, a banditry
that veiled your mouth, that covered

your blue eyes, and from this place
& from this place only the questions
echo & when will the rocks speak

when will the broken rocks speak
to answer again, to answer again
this heart's asking

4.

No one else
could meet me there.


(in my actual notebooks this is marked "in progress"...but I will not return to it. So I release it).