Our sands
With bone worn backs we huddle
in the shadow of empire, nursing
unborn stars, to beg the question:
how many dawns remain? Against
vain attempts to tame the hungers
of that constant, mechanical mouth,
its gaping hole the void in the centers
where we once met beneath another
sun, in another time, before time was
eaten too, to be excreted in legions
of micro units, meted out in
increments
of perceived
worth.
Answers to FAQs.
Why this?
For these moments
I brace with an answer.
So dumb when it comes
to the ways of this place
that I carry a cheat sheet.
It says: taste, tear,
bear the weight because
you know yourself a floating
thing, prone to flying off,
unable to land. The terror
of losing touch with
gravity. Because that dark
beyond those clouds
is thick with the pull
of entropy, into some
chaos and I don’t know
what, away from here
the place of sweat
and laundry and alarms
and a lot of driving to
and from places in cars
with their warning lights
and trying to park
and getting overdraft
notices and the most recent
thing to break today is a blood
vessel in the eye and that little
hinge that’s supposed to keep
the door from opening too wide
and obviously this heart and
at least one of these is going
to stay broke and too far open
all the time.
To leave themselves
The shore in late afternoon in winter sang the shells of a season of arriving tides, drumming the fragments of entire homes these creatures left behind. We walked through them in February when it was cold and you stopped on your knees before them, collecting. The awe on your face with each find. A week later the machines arrived to dredge sand over it all, to smooth the surface for the summer season––to make it, as one spokesperson said, nice for our visitors.
And lovers
How much depends
on the timing of a tear
in the fabric of wing?
How much on the drip
of wax?
How much on the hunger
of an eye, craving reunion
with the nearest star.
What drifts
The raft’s rough edges where deep clings.
Raft sighing back, yes, oblivions, I see you,
kaleidoscopic leagues, teeming
with hidden lives.
You want ours, too? Is this an invitation
or a warning––or play? The way our youngest
are known to slap with open hands
your surface
just to feel
you resist.
With current
Here is one, in forest, blooming. One arm to a neighboring planet, the other to the underfoot. Center as conduit. Burn into body. Water brings earth’s snake rounding air, biting tail, fire becoming again the form, the form coming again, from ash.
And related cravings
We knew its texture even as it was always escaping us. Like how you can hold the child but not the whole life. Or bear daily witness to the setting sun and be daily reminded how impossible it is to see. The thing so often had to do with finding the question that went with the answer the dream was giving. Naturally, many tried to turn this mystery into a theoretical challenge. Which was something different than entering its all.
Within them in us.
It was a ceremony. It was hearing. We were pilgrims and wanted to be heard. As now, in hope of returning––somewhere. It seemed we shared this. A common dream? Maybe. Of a time when we were. Uncertain, we did not speak, but listened, the echo of our assembly in our flesh, resounding.
Purr, an example
Like yes but don’t get too close. Yet. Yes, but don’t touch me. Until now. Yes, you but I don’t entirely trust anyone. Yes, but I need and need. Yes, but time. But here. But possibly unsafe. I go again. I will go. This window, though. The long slant of light. I fold myself into it. To be without holding my breath for what’s next. This breath, I let it go.
From here
What to make
of what remains
after the burn?
