sketching your profile

i have taken some liberties
in tracing your contours
with the tip of my finger

the bridge of your nose
the line of your jaw
the back edge of your neck

now my soul has come unloosened
and i'm unable to shove it back
into that cloak of flesh i wear

come swim with me
in that sea beyond our cages of bone
unfasten the gown of your body

show me your luminous edges
let your unadorned presence
shiver the surface of waters

then before dawn
we'll step back into our skins
and i can start using a pencil

a quiet village

and where do you suppose this place you speak of is
beyond the wars of other countries
and their exiles without shoes

some who've traveled whole continents
counting off miles by the thousands
before they can find any trace of silence

curtains billow in an open window
you can still hear
the sea outside the abandoned village

a sound
like old men sleeping in the afternoon
with no one to wake them

the sky among shadows
of bells in a gleaming tower
with no one to sound them

here and there amidst the flies
that linger long on clods of clay
flutter still the unnamed sleeves

piebald

did you forget that ghost of a boy
who’d flit into the sunny spots
we’d sometimes find in forests
when we used to lose our way

funny how we seem unable
to find those places
anymore

he was always hungry
not for anything but light
he was thin

and his clothes were sun-bleached too
how he craved the billowing white
that dark haired boy with eyes of night

sometimes still
startled from sleep in some black hour
i see him

at the far end of the pasture
beyond the weathered stumps
and red-capped lichen

there used to be a piebald pony too

but now the fence is gone
and the barn’s been razed
there’s no place for ponies

or pale-faced boys

a momentary solace

i find the wind has taken down my favorite tree
and yet across the gray-skied bay
light unfurls along your slender peninsula--
a gown of ochers and reds

my brother

on that night they brought you up
did you tell them
how waves overwhelm the world
demand everything
how they rise against the unrelenting winds
and build with all their liquid weight
until they reach a height
that is unbearable
did you tell them
how they fall
full of what they are
and crash
a clamor of rage
did you say
waves are only water