Poem for Widows

            After John Wieners

Though you left just days ago

            you have been gone for months and

I only want for someone to speak on your

                        death

            as a truth, as the inevitable

like a constant that will not

give you up or let me win.

            Tomorrow I bury you.

            Your starch-white shirt still

folds itself over the back of the desk chair.

                        I touch it

            The way a bride

                        sweeps her fingertips over

                        a trousseau on the eve

                        of her espousal.

            The glass you held to your lips

            still rests on the night table.  

Tonight I paint my eyes shut

            with the memory of you.

I light a candle and imagine

the luminous warmth is from

            the air around your skin.

I hold in my hands the necklace

of strewn hearts you gave me

                        and

            kiss it as though it were

a rosary.

I crawl between the sheets and

                        cover my face with a white corner

            the same way  an animal

finds a quiet place to hide

                        before it dies.

            I let go of life

the same way my grandfather did

when he died just days after

his wife

                        (when your heart is shattered

                        in so many pieces like this,

                        you cannot go on).

No, I know you are still out there

                        wandering the earth at will

            and nothing remembers you

            the way I do.

Layered Cities II

I found you in my last months

            of losing—

            in a riverbed of doubt

            quaking in the wake

 I contemplate

            how anything could

            make or cloud

            so much sense;

            a lost lady

or

            a last look

or

            a layered city.

I’d find you anywhere down the road,

due-ly haunted

            as you gleam at me

            in white dreams

glance-found

it now seems

you’re off in your black machine.

Like the one unanswerable measure,

this hook was a gift—

dried blood I’ll never rinse clean.

Though, if we do turn in time,

            if we do waste

                in scoff—

I would any-day-end

as this does;

as inevitably

as evenly

as the words between us.

Lot’s Wife

            I.

Some nights,

            I inherit the world in my dreams

and by morning, have walked so many

make-believe miles,   

            it’s hard to keep my

            eyes open.

            II.

Other nights,

            I am a paper-cut-out

of what I used to be

because you’re no longer there to settle

            my sleep.

            III.

This night,

            the story is changed

and you have stayed behind

in the burning cities—

            you are the only one left

while

            time is fleeting.

            IV.

In this dream,

            the angels are demons

and strip me from the city, and you.

These symbols of fault:

my torn purple dress,

my wild eyes—

            my ripped glance—

            and for you, I am ever looking back.

            V.

I think it

            my fault, Lot—

                        I think I’ve set you ablaze

                        in my amber parade.

And in a moment of singed truth

            (the magic of a line from your lips)

I am nothing before or after

but rather the all-everything

            in the act of leaving.

            VI.

Even now,

            you blanket my worry

            when I am uneasy

                        and

silence my screams into night sighs.

            VII.

If ever there was

            a fire started

it was in & with my heart.

It was in absence of stick and smoke—

was more labor than blowing on paper,

than wax-burdens and slack-days

where I no longer happen or occur.

            VIII.

Love, if I have left

            my reason:

            you are my salt, accepted:

            you are my last direction looked

Metronome

memoriam of a metronome:

            we don’t lie here for long,

i am compact in thrusted lust

as you urge,

“lift your dress,”

and collect up my flesh

by the merciless hand-folds.

when i let you fall into me

i know the why of the wait

i know the shine of your silver-slash neck ring

(that from which dangles me)

            an attachment of promise-

            something round and ominous

                        this ring became thing

                        to beat time on my brow

and i quake at all ends

as i put on my sad face—

and i beg:

hold me in embrace

            i am awkward paper-doll

            with bobbing eyes of glass

spend me as i bend

i am carpet under mass

crumbling in the fist of your shrift

as a music box mouths

“what have you done to me?”

            twist me in your rift;

            what waits is scorn

                        under mess

eyes and breath

            wide

with deep fissure sighs

this serpent-circle—

this hoop turned loop-gag

a-choke in my throat;

                        the ring, when brazen clean—

                        was gold; was sucked-shining;

we are masked in the gaps

as my legs snap like

some trap to push you back—

o muse

            o doll-used

i am asunder

i am other

under hour of cover

i(will ever)house arrows

                        in air-fury—

            and

this is a death-end year-story.

Bail

all the miles of my life;

            my only way away from you.

I’ll never return, rather only move further in time

from you.

O the detritus of endings:

stillborn minutes between us

pass like fibrillations/

hellbent clutchlings

            as we hold these moments closer

            like dolls.

If I could just mirror this

            impossible image

and stay a little longer

            for one more soft look

            on your hardened face—

but no

            we sit here,

we     lean         again

on corners

of tables

as you say:

                        “maybe we should misplace all

                        the carefully laid out words.”

but these words are the

moments we wait for in quiet rooms

as so much fills the silence:

a touch

or a thought—

or…

a glimpse of want

            like

the night

I felt a breaking of ties

In that long look goodbye.

Scavenger

small clouds pour into dozens

of iron-knot folds.

the sky is silver

and its motions are a-quiver

in achromatic pallor

sallowed, whispers

general feedback ceasing

and the age listens

for an angry lick

at your daunting, flaming heels

slam!

there goes the knock

at the cultist’s door

where a flower fits into

a tender black cell

and stands cramped—

            stands

in seething apology

            and

we agree:

                        a halo is never more

                        than a moral hood

we ponder such things, directing

            see: cell

            see: sill

            see: pill

pull

/

well

this tender black cell

is a welt

on a forelimb—

on shaky skin

            score after score with a violent switch,

or cable

she’s thinking of a particular kind of whole

or the error of cycle:

some corpse in the grass;

detecting sledge

flies chasing fire

and

                                    nothing works here.

we are a systemic match

in seething capital apology/

                                    identifying:   apologies

            so sorry

tomorrow’s case:  the antigen crosses the ambit

in the asylum

            to be immured (in)sanity’s mine

all is laughable

            in senseless

preterit’s bath:   the past

            a bottle-slip in alloy’s pit

a fret of assets

motion verified

like      an ursine

like      so much sense

sniffs air-ings

for climacteric seasons,

sessions, reasons

            trots off escarpments—

falls forward into eskers.

brain-slips

moral trim

a trave to be braved

            in a walk-the-plank dream

her dress seams:  kerf-torn

            and

no one feeds the dying

what’s not a trap—

what isn’t—

            isn’t that

what’s accounted for

in ranged economy

the cultist knocking back on the door

a verdigris sanctioned in pedigree

flowered-tenderly

flower-y trademark tendencies                       like a dowser’s apology

iron-valve mystery

this little black flower fits into a keyhole

1) uniform fold

2) small blunder

                        nothing works

here as:

flies chase fire

            in our penny-plan

where our horses run unbridled

where the blood-letter lunches

you are in all of these places

                         your life goes here     (                                   )

in a fishladder

in the melt-water

in a polar-cap-paid-for

            h u s h

where is my anodyne swash?

in (liver’s) livid fits

seizure’s bets—

preterit’s excellence

you

in the mirror in the moonlight

            b a r e

and staring

            as

the

small clouds pour

into dozens

of folds

            and the error cycle curls.

“Towards Dawn”

            for Robert Creeley

Over and over

they come to tell me

the master is dead—

            “gone under earth’s lid”

your death—

a Texan death

            (where everything is bigger)

As news of your passing

creeps through the walls:

                        (the sun hits my face)

            and

my eyes close slowly in motion.

set your sight on rest

                        off you go

                        like a tired horse

                        onward, towards dawn.

The Letter

the sleeping lines of your face

            deceive,

though there is something to be

            cherished

in the creases of your dress:

the slip of a sash,

            the wish of starch-satin

            as it sweeps the sofa,

and you settle in precisely

where you found this letter

            waiting.

the fabric has learned to cradle

            you

when no one else would.

the burning items in your fingers:

the letter still dangles;

and the silhouette of a cigarette

still freshly lit—

            i wonder why you have not joined hands

            sooner in this masterpiece of loneliness.

this is the look of a woman

            being left.

            the cornflower blue

            markings

are the despair of soft lifelessness.

            the cornflower blue

rouses visions

of black-tie events

and intentions for good measure;

            all the delicate garments

you must have

            laid out last night—

but you come home to silence

and paper, years after he said

            “girls like you belong in big houses.”

now you know: big houses

house more rooms to be

            lonesome in.

“All you say you want

to do to yourself you do

to someone else as yourself”

            -R. Creeley

Letters & Mailings

here, in the nervous doorway

there’s a new way of looking

      at oneself

through an urban glance—

through a fading chance or

a starting over of sorts.

downward, we mouth the best lines

of “Anger”

communicating a year

or a history—

in this, we communicate something

that which you can explain

as residual—

as a gradual fading of places

you’d been to

or ran from

            you leave—

                        someone leaves

the flowers all those years ago

but now, where are you?

somewhere out west?

some place

where the sun sets?

excuses you left

may execute themselves

with all that you took with you

or held onto

somewhere someone labors

in a room

at someone else’s

something-or-other

while another

looks on in anger

some one is done

with the old ways—

done enough with some vague

”Initial Reaction”

or impression

to comment upon

a strained line

            wants so much to craft something

                        actively, to craft something

blank increments of time

labeled in something known as:

            the subtle flicker

            of a sudden

            bust & flow—

            a sudden happening

            toward anything or

            a moving labor

                        nulled down into a lull…

            so quiet now

            you’re a thousand or more nautical miles from here

            and cannot swim away

Kick-Stand

            I would will this away

were it simple to cut out

            the strings attached to

                        a throbbing organ

or stun them cold

            (frozen?)

            with large metal tool

                        to tap-tap

            a thwap or a bang.

i saw this image:

an arm extended

            rubbing smile one last time

and then appendage

came whipping by

                        breaking the formation

            as i went crashing

in many ways

            similar to the night

                        you grabbed at me

            to awaken panic-state

and urgencies

            pushing me hard against a wall

                        quotations like:

                                    “I’m not him”

            it’s hard to hold a glance

or to look at someone

            who won’t look at you back.

            and to know that you could

            love them

harder

            than the last or the next.

[i still have bruises and strange marks!]

first + caught = fight or fought

            i just want credibility

                        or some knowledge of

            which direction to point

                                    my finger in,

                        in terms of blame

i wanted you to own up

            to your point-blank courage

                        inaudible responses…

                                    inward winces

                                                and painful clutches

wedged with knife and/or

            hammer in awkward convulsion.

Trap

This year

fall arrived overnight

            and darkened all the rooms.

This year

I feel smaller beside you

            as

you are always

eclipsing.

Last year

            I spent my minutes making miracles

and

            you were always looking

when there was nothing

            to be seen,

or too busy warding off

            the intrigued.

            Cornered animals aren’t known

to fall in love with the trap,

rather it is the hunter

            who is enamored

of the act.

But what acts as contact

within these lines of constraint?

            and what do we tell ourselves

in order to avoid

            these things that sting?

Even though you love me,

            I must leave.

If in saying this, I burn you,

            is the fault mine for speaking

or yours for experiencing the emotion?

What does it matter if

            before I say this,

I say instead:

This may hurt more than you expect.

The way I love you

will never be means

for mending anything

I’d break by staying.

like the way I think of love

            as milk

spilled over the table—

we are taught not to cry over it.

If, when you reach for my hand,

it is cold as our fingers clasp,

            will you then drop the net

            before I jump

and know just exactly how I don’t feel

(and haven’t felt for years)?

What does it matter if

I never love you

and your world becomes a waste?

            What will you say then

and what does it matter if

            love finds a way

to ruin both your life a mine?

The Father

            For Dan Sullivan

In dream state

            I’m seeing you again

after so much time

where a day seems year-long

            and passing.

I am sunk in the hospital

bed

            deep in the miles of

sterile halls.

You enter

            with burning basket

of Bachelor Buttons

            and

                        I am crying

”it has been so long”

Nothing heals until

it touches you—

you: a resource of

ancestry

            my would-be fatherling

but too much time gone now

            and you only visit (in) dreams.

            Even so,

when I wake

            there is relief.

Film

            How is it you’re able to

            notice the sadness

            yet do not offer

            to mend it?

Piercing question, I know,

but I have dignity (and a spine!)

so it never dropped out

the same way

I won’t let the tears spill

‘til I’m home,

behind the door, leaning.

I ask why you even wanted me

here

and your answer stings

“to have a good time”

But your version was not

what I had in mind.    

I ask myself why I came here

“i’m lonely” is the answer

And that’s my excuse.

Still, I didn’t come here to be

a wall blossom or

a quiet decoration.

I came here to be

a small flower budding on your pillow—

an idea sprouting gorgeous.

If this were a film, you might

have seen me wide-eyed in the wide-angle,

my face falling in slow motion—

something choking my forced smile:

(a twitch/butterfly stitch to hold back the times

I’ve put my time in—

haven’t I?       

I just want to show you:

1. an ounce of pillowcase peace

2. something that hides/hangs behind the eyes in sleep

3. or a whisper-moan of words only uttered in dreams…

and I need you to see:

4. these are the only means I have for telling you this.

Dissolve

The night I pushed myself

                        into the world, you were

            passed out

in someone else’s yard

upon first glance, you said

            “this one’s sour; send her back”

the only way I can turn

            my mind away from this

is to remember my mother

                        and how her body changed

            to welcome me—

                        or to think:    if only the two of you

had been more careful.

as a child I started up at you  

                        for hours

            the sun’s rays a back drop

illuminating your hollow silhouette

                                    (I had lied so hard to myself!)—

            but now, when I call

you say “I never wanted this”

            and I have to place one hand to my forehead

                        to shade the flashbulb moments that

soar beneath lidded eyes

            as the other hand is held over

my mouth to keep from yelling

                        “why do you hate me so much?”

            (and how have so many women loved you?!)

and if I exhale this pain-pocket

                        I know it will be my last breath.

I wish I could just look past this,

            or go back in time to tell that little girl

“turn away, some things look too promising

                                                in the light.”

            That way, years later

                        I would not find myself questioning

whether this would all have been

            easier had my mother never

collected you by your collar

                        (to prevent the 3-story fall)

years before I was ever born.