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

beyond midnight

each word begins
         as a yearning

                 a wound

       each one a brick
                      a cinder block sinking

some surface too easily

                    he tries to be singular
                         but he's too tired to make anything
                                                                                last

       some chords composed by john cage are spears
                                                                         thrust into a sleeping man's side

                                                                         light cuts long
                                                                                         into the cockcrowed hour

beginning the second half-century

two women round the corner
they have nice asses
one pushes a stroller
they stand by the shore
and take snapshots of themselves

around another corner
the whir of electric wheelchairs
two boys their heads askew
their conversation is not unintelligible
they race each other and laugh

the sun is warm against this wall
the court is empty now
whirls of leaves are my companions
my constant companions
i speak the skittering language of leaves

a lapse of discretion

the street
once sunny in early october
maples’ orange leaves
the woman sits in a chair

her white collar and painted-on smile
how she looks out the window
at the fabric in the shop

the softness of her hand
a quality of cream
of linen as if it has no weight

only a scent of jasmine
a scent of hemlock
of lavender

the color of her silken blouse
a lilac purple
spruce green

a taste of powder
beneath her ear
behind her jaw

tight spirals
pressed dark
against temples

wavering breath
of parted lips
as if to speak a pleasure

over and over
starlings dot a sky that's almost blue 

persistence of vision

chair in a desert
every single day its shadow sweeps
from west to east

a young child kneels
forehead in sand
veil of skin covering ribs

a photographer frames the scene
weighs vulture against child
he has an eye for balance

he shoos the bird away
but the image remains
he cannot face it 

chair in a desert
every single day
a shadow

few know the sweetness of twisted apples*

on boyhood’s farm
my grandmother spoke a language
i never understood—
a winnowing wind among the apple boughs
gnarled fruit of a quitted land
her skinnied limbs her skull-boned eyes
i cawed to crows
in windmilled heights and maple trees
my father dug potatoes
a cow would lick my arm
the coarseness of its tongue
old john the lugan
the basement his home
a crooked table where he ate from cans
the bed of straw upon a metal frame
sunlight’s meager portion—
a pillar of dust across a concave floor
polished dirt beneath his shoeless feet
the stubble of a furrowed face
his only language a toothless smile
singsong of a sweet-wined drunk
displaced by war
his family lost
perhaps relocated
maybe never was
his hands weaving twine
carving tines
whittling away the wooden days
until nothing was left
of my grandmother
or the cow
or the ashes of the apple trees
my father moved him on
only the smooth earth
to remember the soles of his feet


* The title is taken from a line in Sherwood Anderson's "Winsburg, Ohio"

ode to a bird

this lone remnant of our conversation
white feather found on the floor
have i told you of the rain-beaten leaves
of how it rains nearly every day
lost little feather

its end has been clipped
its barbs undone
you at the next table over
all spun in cloaks and scarves
what is one feather to you

this thread of your vestment
opened wide open--
unfold before me
you flower of feathers
you bird
you song of pure air
all these leaves loosened by rain
it's already Fall
what are you doing
making a nest in my hair

exiled

amidst the hollow pieces of another night
dust owns everything
there is no help from stars
nor do books of stars carry any promise
I count my teeth
I don’t want to believe they can be incinerated—
the only remnants archeologists might excavate of me 
countless twigs scattered in the grass
is the oak even alive
or is it dying by an unperceived attrition
long after hammers strike
the notes reverberate
linger still in silence
nearly all my conversations are with the dead
many are foreigners
clinging to black bread—
leave us alone they say
we're tired of your soliloquies
go pester the crows

beyond the labyrinth

only the humming--
a monotone moan through a glass door
voice shaped by buildings of brick
held by a patina of rust
walls at right angles
a multitude of distances

beyond the labyrinth--
a small elm encircled by pavement
its yellow leaves roil
dark branches bend
preserve that which is rooted
it clings to the earth

pattern of etched mortar
chipped paint of white letters--
the severed clouds
sunlight framed by the shadows
once more the monotonous moan 
a meaningless outcry from nowhere to nothing

you hang over this small porcelain cup--
touched by how many fingers
mouthed by how many lips
whose breath was held here
and yet the wind
it speaks to you

look--
the leaves glisten with brilliance

burning bush

shadows of leaves on a burgundy curtain quiver
they move in muted sunlight across a Persian rug

you ache with things you shall never be—
the persistence of vision.

rise from this kneeling,
open the curtains of day.

among September winds
the leaves turn

redder than fire.

leaden

at dusk’s open window
a rushing wind—

oaks’ deafening herald

you stand before the dusty sill
a drumming echoes off your chest

a promise of sleep—

distant lightning

returning to earth

~ field ~

how green still clings to yellowing trees
and cattails bend over darkened waters
the blue-grey sky is violent with cloud
the slanting sun upon a knoll of beat-down hay
a few loosed leaves and branches lifted to wind

~ shed  ~

once the grey-grooved slats smelled sweet with pitch
the curled shingles smelled of tar
now the brown bent nails hold nothing--
round worn ends of bowing boards
outlast the carpenter's hands
his utilitarian plan given to the rootless moss

~ homestead ~

once there were potatoes and corn
white curtains rustling in a sunshined breeze
scent of apple pie
now the rusted rims of tractor wheels
the rotting harnesses of horseless fields
the odor of forgotten implements
clinging to the hollow of a broken barn

after the storm

mossy shadows
a hum through the branches
you say the mountain is cold
but I say it is still
water trickles over stones
leaves litter a rain-dampened path
the coarseness of pebbles beneath your pale feet
the puddle a mirror
the mirror a vision of sky
word you have forbid yourself to speak
breath slipped from tongue
dew sliding from leaf
translucent into a pool
a single circle
fragrance of chokecherries
in dusk you tell me
all you know of dissonance
how you crave the sound of crickets in cold
you wait in silence beneath the striated clouds

and this morning

is there sunlight
on your breast,

any yellow glowing amidst
your waking’s whiteness?

which wilted flower
lends it’s lone colored dab?

is it red, or orange?
tell me please it’s purple

you were draped in purple
in my dream,

purple in the sunlight
of my dream.

because they do not know

in the dead hours of night
you disassemble a piano

each shaped piece of wood a lever
the clutter of a pile of keys

beneath 87 and 88 a dime from ‘18
a bingo chip—  translucent red

the hidden edges of 63 through 75
stained from communion wine in ‘94

due to the chaotic situation
no consensus on the number

hammer 46
broken at the shaft

nearly lost
recovered from a potted plant

irreparably untunable
the piano cost a 100 dollars

to lay your fingers on the keys
and watch the hammers strike

for weeks you hear the silenced note
for years the ghosts beneath the bridge

like bamboo bells

once we watched the sunrise
through leaded window-glass

ate pheasant using silverware
inherited from aunts

now a spider waits for moths
among the toppled bricks

hollow husks of insects
rattle in the sills