Something in the hollow
of the ear, some rift
deep in the bone—
and you tip, lightweight:
one ant trying to balance
a load, small bird caught
in a net of rain.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Sums
Were it not for the mind
that always wants to calculate the cost,
the heart and mouth that always want
to cram one more pleasure in,
there might be no call to separate
flesh from its limits, no need to make
apology for the noisy clapper sounds
made by attachment
after attachment— Is there hope?
I want to ask— Or, how long is this work
of endless cleaning, trimming,
pruning? In heat-hazed streets,
beggar children knock on car windows
opening their palms, offering grain-
sized buds they’ve threaded
into garlands. Help me, see
me, give me, say the ones who need
the most— How is it not possible to give
when even these blossoms, already dead,
cannot hold in their scent?
In response to Via Negativa: Dogged.
Little Etude
I could barely keep
my eyes open after digging
in the dirt, out in full sun,
hands mint-wreathed as though
tomorrow might never come—
The soil warm
as affection, clouds
banked somewhere else; rain held
temporarily in abeyance— How easy
to forget how the end of a breath
has the same sound as a sigh;
how the scent, the music,
become richer and more clear
as the body leans deeper
toward its fall—
In response to thus: small stone (242).
Todavía no
Boatman who will take me
through the mist and rain, I have ready
a piece of bread, a little copper
coin for the meter
of your time, for passage through
those treacherous channels—
And I know today
could be the day, but my heart’s in shreds
from the brightness of yellow umbrellas
on the sidewalk, from Louie’s
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
brassy on the radio And oh! If we
ever part, Then that might break my heart!
And my heart’s a knob of sugared ginger
warm in my mouth, my heart’s
the room I’ve yet to dust, polish,
put in order, for all my loves who are coming
any minute now to while away the hours—
In response to Via Negativa: Feast.
In the arms of pleasure, feel
the press of dark upon the eyelids—
and in the moment just after they open, the film
that shimmers, faint, around each thing.
In response to Via Negativa: Ad Man.
In the Eye
Rumors descend
That cloud
like dirty milk
or mist on glass
Under the stairs
fold in
Be still
The quiet
in our ears
grown much
too loud
Wasps & hornets
lie down
on the porch
Every tendril
quivering
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
(poem temporarily hidden by author)
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Dog Roses
(Rosa canina assisiensis)
A jute robe is itchy. And so one day, the saint
feels the urge to abandon monastic life. If only
he were a tree, a strip of lettered wood nailed
to a crossroads sign; something else, anything
other than this silence among the doves, duties
beautifully illustrated by the missalette. If only
he were a sailor bound for a year’s ship journey
to the far ends of the earth, or even a scarecrow
flapping its tin-can arms in the middle of a field.
At the height of great feeling or pain, the body
has been known to forget itself. Do his eyes roll back
into his head, does he break into a sweat and twitch
like a lit swath of firecrackers? What are the cries
that escape his mouth? In the humid night, open
your windows after sex to find the air saturated
with the rumor of flowers: the ones with thorns
are said to have the sweetest scent. It’s not hard
to imagine what it’s like to be seized by fragrance,
to give oneself to the darkness; to leap
into the bramble bushes fully clothed.
In response to Via Negativa: In Partibus Infidelium.
Election
Rumors abound as citizens wait for voting results. A metal box meant for a village in the north has found its way to a town in the south; none of these votes will be counted. The new king is naked and mad; or he has ADHD; or he is autistic. Or he is a former actor who cannot distinguish between reality and a B-movie script. The old king has been dead more than two decades; he lies in state, frozen in a crypt, pumped full of formaldehyde and surrounded by satin flowers. The ex-queen squints at him through the glass panels and plants a coral-lipsticked kiss closest to the side of his face. She returns to her walled-in estate and sighs, flexing her size 8 1/2 feet encased in Italian leather. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Orchids sway in the breeze and the ocean blinks, brighter than cut sapphires. Maids bring her sparkling coconut water and ice. Someone turns on the plasma screen TV but her eyes are not what they used to be. Even in a country where she might run out of tears to cry for the very poor who are so very many, she believes there are still pockets of hope. Her son the senator has promised to join her for dinner. Her daughter the governor no longer hates her as she used to in her teens. See? she wants to say to the voices who come to taunt her in dreams. In the end, all will be well. The ones who have truly suffered will get their just rewards. Heaven after all is a dynasty where only the good can live forever.
In response to Via Negativa: Heaven.
Lullaby: To Anger
“It’s harder to practice that tender emptiness of forbearance, that aches and yearns and still lets go, and that can recognize and hold the aching of others as well.” ~ seon joon
I think of their assorted quarrels through the years—
mother-sister-aunt-grandmother: the constant drama
of porcelain cracked and strewn on hardwood floor or
kitchen tile; names and insults hurled that sailed
through early mornings like jets of hot water
flung from coffee-pots and always found their mark;
bruise in the joint, their point of tension, their central
subject pain and desire. This grandmother lived with us
shortly after my father— her favorite and only son—
insisted he loved this farmer’s daughter enough
to marry her in church, before a throng of haughty relatives.
There are pictures, yes, of arras, veil, and cord.
And see in the background? The younger sister with the veil?
That is my mother too. We all kept house together, she
most of all, ladle constantly in hand; pot on the boil,
salt in the water. Then me in the oven for everyone
to fawn over and fondle, plot a future for. And this
grandmother is the same I tell those stories of,
that you still can hardly believe: how she slept
between the two of them that first night in their
marriage bed, how she parted the curtains of her room
to glare at mother’s lady friends when they might come
to call. God rest the souls of those who’ve gone ahead:
their hot angers finally assuaged, all their poor or lavish,
restless or unrequited loves absolved of any imperfection;
their cries and voices stilled in soft pillows of earth.
In response to thus: such tender emptiness.