The Bird Nest in the E

There was a Texaco station
at the first stoplight out of our neighborhood.
Vivid capital letters across a black ribbon
advertised fuel to us and free housing, we would learn,
to others. Our mother saw it first,
the nuisance of twigs protruding from the lower
lip of the second letter. Not the cozy O,
nor the safe triangle of the A, nor even
the the protected valley of the X, but
the narrow slat of the E. The
sparrows abiding there had chosen a home with a ledge.
It swiftly became the fashion for all
present 5- to 11-year-olds to declare,
"The bird nest in the E!" upon the passing
of any Texaco station. Bonus points
if you said it first. And my mother,
whose ears had been used to exclamations
far more grating, would only blink her patient eyes,
knowing she had hinted to her children
at the unpredictable gifts of occasionally looking up.

Salt Dissolves

This inchoate dream I had

was sprinkled into warm water. White, 

iodized grains lilted and settled on the bottom.

I wanted to taste the salt on everything. 

I lost it, split lip dripping. 

(I should know better, I should know better.

It was never going to be the sort of undertaking

I could waltz up to on a whim.)

The ocean rolls into my mouth.

Among the jellyfish, reef sharks, brittle stars, limpets,  

the taste is still there, changing the water.

Spilt dreams tossed over my left shoulder,

they brace me, balast against the incalculability of the sea

and the un-alonest I will ever be.

Season for Osmanthus

At home this very minute
the sweet olive is flowering,
turning the air heavy and heady (how
did you get so sticky with want?)

Stay outside too long and you
get drunk on it, go zigzagging
through the neighbors' yard and avow

you will sleep in the grass
because you want to keep smelling that smell
until the small apocalypse of the dawn

Approach the sweet olive tree directly
and you can't smell a damn thing
because redolence is a gift
(so sidle, breathe, wait)

Meanwhile you expand,
hippy as a rosebud and just as knockout
I could spend days in awe

of your melliferous mouth
as we wait for the breeze to bring us sweet olive
(a secret
that flies to the corners
of your mouth and turns them
slowly
upward)

Sufjan Interjects Again

What makes a belly good is not its girth
—sneezing the sneeze of short snouts—
Or its ability to be disguised by an empire waist
—snorfling into my armpit—
But whether you can lay with it exposed
—careening through patches of tall grass —
Inviting adoration or showing submission
—nearly rolling off the bed or stairs—
And either way trusting the flesh to be exactly enough
—closing alien-large eyes to better feel
the relief of short nails on furry, imperfect skin.

Mercy of the Clarinetist, Libations to the Glass

Lauren was patient as a fern.
She did not even laugh when I said the sadness felt like a cylinder of frozen peas,
But made me sit with the thing so plain I couldn't make a metaphor of it.

That's what was left after I hurled glass bottles into a concrete wall,
Hoping the itch would leave my golgothan hands.
Some of it did, but glass shards lurked in the weeds
And I could not gather them all.
It's the kind of cold that burns, I said. Not the comfortable cool
Every Louisiania-born fat woman longs for from March to October.

What clenches in my abdomen, what leaves long red marks
On my face when I wake in the morning
Is the loneliness of the small, round, hard things you microwave
When there is no one else to cook for.

Dare, Columbine

Pierrot, do not give me another damned rose.

I will not have it, sir.
Enough of unassuming sweetness.

If you turn toward the waxing moon and sigh one more time

I will smack you about the face.

Come instead, and sneak into this cemetery with me.
The resting souls there will not mind us, I promise.
They won't even notice if we tell dirty limericks,
Or, flat on our backs, look up the stone angel's nose.
And from there it is an easy distance to saying secrets and kissing.

I have always preferred you,
But I do not want to sit so long in silence.
Be daring, Pierrot, and use your mouth.

Speak, clamorously if you must.
Let's vandalize the night
With our clanging shouts to God.

The Wind Comes and Takes Thalia

The wind comes and takes.

I stand outside the apartment

And write your name on a dried leaf in mad, crabwalking letters.

When I close my fist, bits of Thalia fall from among my fingers.

The wind comes and takes

Those who are cowards in the face of emotional risk.

We trade chairs. 

I would write your name on the petal whorl

But then it wouldn't fly when the wind comes.

Instead there is ink on my hands

From when the leaf cracked

Under the pressure of the marker as I dotted the i

And black bled into the rills of my palm.

You remind me it becomes a comedy

If in the end we both are married—

Though not necessarily to each other—

And you laugh while you try to pry open my fingers.

I give my tongue to the cat

And open my hand to the wind, which comes and takes.

Drinking Alone In My Apartment on New Year's Eve

A) Would not be half so embarrassing
If I didn't feel compelled to write about it
But here I jolly well am, aren't I

B) Tastes more like quinine
Than anything else

C) Is lit with a ring of sweet olive candles
I lean away from to avoid
Setting the place on fire with my breath

D) Is only depressing if I stop believing

That next year will be different

Somehow

Lady Godiva

People whispered that I was noble, crazy, brave
(or all of those things in combination)

And perhaps I was

I don't remember exactly why anymore
I clothed the horse but not myself
(Embroidered linen draped
over his shoulders and quarters)
But here is what I do know:

I was stung awake by the somehow prickle of horsehair
on my legs and the first sun on the whole of my back
I felt the shudder of my flesh as the horse tramped onward

I had not known what nakedness could offer me
until my lonely pageant laid bare the city
Absent its vendors and politicians
it was ghosty and holy and I was
holy too

I sweated into the nimbus of my uncovered hair
and breathed to the capacity of my lungs
and began to glow
(People say poor Tom was struck blind
or hypnotized that day. Either way,
now he peddles wreaths
he made for the Queen of Heaven)

And I have not stopped since that time
Sweating, fluorescing
and taking numinous breaths

In Which Danielle Does Not Pray

I sat with my grandfather.

He knew my name, probably. He gasped for air.

I sat, loving him and not knowing what to do.

I offered to read Sherlock Holmes aloud, to rub his feet,

Or to bring him water.

I tell you this because I want you to think well of me,

Even if I was not useful. He declined.

I watched my mother, stalwart and gentle,

Care for him consummately. She shaved his whiskers,

Held his cup for him to drink, tucked the blanket around his feet.

Those things I might have done, 

But dying is an ugly business, and she did not shy from the rest. 

She held his hand through the gurgling ripping coughing. She did not balk

At urine or vomit or blood. She saw his legs become spindles.

She smoothed his hair and looked at him with such tenderness,

As though his mouth were not crusted yellow and as though 

He had never been a hard man.

I sat in the room and watched her ministrations,

And I could not possibly have loved her more. 

When he dies, I will cry for love of her.

(Selah. Ainsi soit-il.)