Rêver de voler

Everybody dreams of flying, right?
It cannot be unusual
To look up at the gauzy clouds
And feel the pull to be among them.

Surely other people
Thrill to the notion of soaring,
And wired into their cells also,
Is recognition of the vault of heaven
Jarring as memory.

I cannot be the only one
Who arches to ease the ache between my shoulders
Where I know there once were wings.

"Awesome--what, like a hotdog?"

Other Countries


Well-intentioned relatives and friends ask
"How was your trip?"
As though I could possibly answer truthfully

I paste it with insufficient words,
Words that could not possibly stretch
Around the things I saw and felt

Words like:
Fun
Beautiful
Adventure

When I mean words like:
inner earthquake pinch bell pepper new smoke blossom isolate held shift emerge crumble minty salt flats tango miles tantrum lungs falter grow sweat and change

These are not the words requested,
But they are my storywords, honest as I can manage,
And pieced together properly
They explain how I came back different
And what transpired
And why I will no longer say, "God bless you!"
When somebody sneezes

"Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions."

Delicate Ecology

This evening it storms.
I am resigned to spending these maelstroms—
And for that matter, all incarnations of weather
Save for hurricanes, which, necessarily, are family affairs—
Alone;
Because, I reason, the circus in my head is still
Too graphic to inflict on another person.

But in the meantime there are recurrent storms.
So in a bed that seems too wide
And flanked by too many blankets,
I set about imagining
This pillow I'm spooning isn't a lumpy rectangle of cotton,
But a waist that tapers and then broadens into tulip bulbs
And gravity draws my lazy wrist
To the nadir of that precipitous dip.

When lightening splits the firmament,
Raspy white fingers reaching hungrily into crevices of the sky,
I shut my eyes against the instant floodlight
And conjure up a careless knot of hair
That spills maybe just shy of my nose.

It stops there, though.
Much too dangerously specific to pretend a scent,
Because every person’s fragrance is her own
And the beauty of this non-reality
Is that it lacks precision (no eyes, no hands, no scent.)

And though I haven't been afraid of thunder
For many years now,
I still feel better if someone else—
No matter how illusory—is there
Not being afraid of thunder
Right next to me.

How I List

This patchy connection we have
(at some moments electric and viable)
makes me keep hold when I should--
knowing, as I do, that you are given
to fits of caprice--
search for someone more steady;
but then I think
that flagpoles and accountants and refrigerators
seem steady
(and do I want this sort of love from a saint bernard?)
I would rather reach for cherries
from between slats of a jenga tower
and pull closer to some mercurial inamorata
from whose mouth come trinkets
and one specifically
the particular folly of whose hands I welcome.

Revenant

"I am not magic yet. But I am in bloom at the end of the world."

Revenant

She came back!
I don't know what changed, but
I was alone one minute
And the next, there she was!
She was not beautiful as I thought she might be
And she looked remarkably, well, unremarkable
Which, I have to tell you, did not disappoint me.
She said to me, "I am a journeyman."
I was glad for her company because
The road has not been so friendly,
Nor have I, on this road, been so friendly.
I spent a long time on the shoulder,
Entire years, really, envying the grass, the birds, the crickets.
But now, for some reason I cannot fathom,
She has come back from that place where I buried her
Under yards of jersey and stretch poplin
And under layers of sugar and white flour.
We walk together now, and if you see us from far away
You can't even tell who is who.

Things You Don't Want To Discover Too Late

On my stove sits a dysfunctional teapot.

It doesn't whistle.
But, then, neither do I.

Anyway, the teapot
Doesn't whistle
So I never know when the water is boiling.

It doesn't matter much
Because I can guess about the right time.
I usually end up with slightly-too-hot tea.

But it would be nice to have a warning,
A whistle to say, "Hey you!
You're overdoing it."

Not that I have a history of overdoing it.
Or denying that I overdo it.

Overdo what, anyway?
The point is, my teapot doesn't whistle,
So even though the water is boiling,
I hear perfectly clearly when

My brother in the next room
Is playing a game with his friends
And someone announces

"Things you don't want to discover too late:
That the parachute is actually a lunch box."

Caesura

You were candy-cane ribbons, silky coils of color,
As you played, giving an impish tug on a branch.

You were enough color to set the sky aflutter.
Shaming the pink and orange—even the daring purple!—with your flirtations.
And just remembering, I am a deluge of color,
Mostly yellow, as I recall, in awe, the bold grasp of your arms,
And the purposefulness of your feet on the peeking roots of the oak tree.

You swung and your toes made an upside down arc-en-ciel.
And the branch, laden with the weight of a girl,
Bowed in creaky submission.
My cowardice kept me still, but the oak tree and I,
We knew what it was to bend for you,
To open a little more in prismatic wonderment.

Call Two Arms (in progress)

When the shofar trumpets
Instead of weapons
Let's call two arms
Two arms to encircle
Two arms to lift up

So mothers, who beat the ground
And to the vacant sky, call
Where has my son gone?
Where has my sun gone?
They'll have two arms, supporting
Two arms, embracing

Until tiny feet marching
Are tiny feet marching
No more

And when they smear war paint
On their cheeks and their chests
Let's call two arms
Two arms to reclaim
Two arms to hold close

this one's not mine, but I do love it so

In Praise of Four-Letter Words
by Ellen Bass

We tell shit
when the egg carton slips
and the ivory globes
splatter on blue tile.
And when someone leaves you
bruised as a dropped pear, you spit
that fucker, fucking bastard, motherfucker.
And if you just got fired, the puppy
swallowed a two-inch nail, or
your daughter needs another surgery,
you might walk around murmuring
fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
under your breath like reciting a rosary.

Cock and cunt--we spew them out
as though they were offal,
as though that vulnerable
bare skin of the penis, that swaying it does
like a slender reed in a pond, the vulva
with its delicate mauve or taupe
or cinnamon fluted petals were the worst
things we know. You'd think we despise
the way they slide together,
can't bear all those nerves
bunched up close as angels
seething on the head of a pin.

And suck, our yes
to the universe, first hunger, whole
mammalian tribe of damp newborns
held in contempt for the urgent rooting,
the nubbly feel of the nipple in the mouth,
fine spray on the soft palate.

What does it mean
to bring another's body
into our body, whether through our mouth
or that other mouth--to be taken in?
When life cracks us
like a broken tooth,
when it wears us down
like the tread of old tires,
when it creeps over us
like shower mold, isn't this
what we cry for?

Maybe all that shouting
is shouting to God, to the universe,
to anyone who can hear us.
In lockdown within our own skins,
we're banging on the bars with tin spoons,
screaming in the only language strong
enough to convey the shock
of our shameful need. Fuck! --
we look around us in terrified amazement--
Goddamn! Goddamn! Holy shit!

"How long til my soul gets it right?"

Lilliputian Bets Cycle

I've been doing some reading
And what I have decided
Is that in a previous life
I was a scullery maid
And you were a washerwoman
We gossiped about the lady of the house
And I secretly left lovenotes for you to find
In the pockets of frock coats
And helped you guess
That they were from the thatcher's son
And hoped you knew they were from me

And in another life
You were a rhinoceros
And I was one of those birds
You know, the kind that hangs out by rhinoceroses
I kept the bugs of your back
And got fed in the process
It was a win-win

Then in the one after that
I was a gun moll
And you played for a little jazz ensemble
We met in a speakeasy
I held my cards to my chest,
Kept your bourbon glass in high cotton
And watched your clarinet jealously

And in one way, way back
I was a great banyan
And you were a swaying bodhi tree
We shaded little tulsi plants and wandering chitals
And when the wind blew we had a dance
And our branches almost touched

And in our most recent past lives
We were both mayflies
I had almost built up the courage to tell you how I felt
I had been stewing all day
And just when I finally thought I might be brave enough
To buzz in such a way that you'd know,
All at once the sun set
And we were both eaten by an owl.

Et voila, here we are again
With you so close to knowing
And me, so close to telling
And I can't help but think
I'm making progress
Even if it takes me another three or four lives to go all in,
Shuffle my way to your door
(Or burrow, or igloo, or den)
And say that I like like you
And have for quite a while
And would you like to go for coffee
(Or caribou, or marshgrass, or sunshine?)