Enough Said

The girl folded her body around his
in a way only very skinny and very lovely girls can,
and she laughed, laughed that silly high laugh
only a small bird or exotic ape is capable of.

He smiled as if watching his grandchild.
To have something to do, he lit a cigarette,
and promptly coughed - he despised smoking
before coffee or getting out of bed,

but he smoked, now, because - because - really,
he wasn’t sure, maybe to give her skinny apelike body
a dimension into which it could vanish
should she so desire. But she looked at him

so clearly, so ungirlishly, as the smoke grabbed and lifted her
across his hair as if they had known each other for years.


Nevertheless, Miracles Occur

I understand the moon
does not know us and that the moon
is older than the moon and that
the moon is full and that the moon

is far heavier than itself, even when
I hold it in my hand, even when
my hand darkens. This night
my hand is black, and it does not know

the moon, even though it places
the moon under my tongue,
because the moon refused to walk
to its execution, refused to rise

to the occasion. It all now depends
on me: the river asks
where shall I flow, the night
wonders when to end.


Seven Lovers

My first lover lives
on the street. He wears
a white shirt and a silk scarf.
He eats trout with his violin bow.

My second lover opens
the window to let April
in: noisy larks ascend -
how beautiful he must be.

My third lover is covered
in diamonds up to his shoulders.
He gifts me dawn
just as he pleases.

My fourth lover limps.
I turned as we left
the punished city: my glance
grazed his leg.

My fifth lover fell
into my glass while we kissed -
his watch ticks in my lap, ticks
because time is about to disappear.

My sixth lover is like the seventh:
weeping because they are doubled,
a child with two heads. I kiss
his chest and look the other way.


Losing Your Place

That’s what remembering is like:
trying to gather together the face
and the name of the boy
with the thick, greasy tongue -
he pushes his tongue between
the pages of the book you read -
but where is the rest of him?
Or the color, that color red
of a woman’s spiked heel
and the arch her foot followed
all the way to the back
of your throat. You have never
seen her but you take her
to Venice and slide your hands
behind the strap of her sandal
and pull the shoe, slowly, away
from her foot, feeling your way
along the seam of her stocking
with both thumbs, and you hold
the shoe like a sacrament, a holy
wafer, against the black wood
of the gondola, and then you burst
back to the task you came here
to accomplish - waiting in line
until your number is up.


The Myth of Mapmaking

There are, even today, places where you can get utterly lost.
A man and a woman, for example, making love for the first time,
falling into each other, falling like the first leaves of autumn.
They are brave, like that, believing in adventure and footsteps

coming to meet them. In the morning, each nerve is strained;
they adjust to swimming in fear. They try out their new voices
to recall a version of certain events: speak to me, he says. She does not.
She speaks the language of love with her tongue and her fingers.

They concentrate fear in a word: you. They close their eyes
to know the leaves that brush across their faces.


Skinner Box

The space I inhabit
       It’s not quite fall yet
is white. There are no windows
       but the leaves are beginning to turn
or rather just one
       and fill our spaces to the limit
very large one
       I wait by the phone
that I try to avoid
       each nerve strained
because gulls buzz by
       and imagine his voice,
at regular intervals
       captive to the small things:
to make sure that I still am
       a rug fringe, a chipped red toe nail
making peanut butter
       weaving themselves into form,
and jelly sandwiches -
       demanding my attention
all in the shape of the bay.
       like highway noise.
When they find out
       The reality of distance settles in.
about my important function
       We each have our own
in the corporate world
       sunrises, and what if
they may crack
       a line collapsed into a single point,
through the glass
       and what if, the event horizon
as angry birds are wont
       were right here, right now--
to do or worse -
       would I stand, transformed,
they may give my name
       a pillar of salt?
to the proper authorities,
       You have a name; I do not know it
at which time
       yet
my life will be entered
       The evening’s sun still shines,
into the court’s protocol.
       carried on a black ship of clouds
I sacrifice a small feather
       I will dream myself
and pray
       into execution
to the white
       and walk slowly
and eat
       through the deep wet grass--
a raw chicken.


Pay. Attention.

Customs officer: duty
between two countries means caring
that no one leaves
with birds that are owls
for in country
and nightingales in another.

WWI soldier: a few yards
of earth and so many mouths
to fill - a handful
for everyone.

Arsonist: bed,
chair, table. Lighter.

Child: asking someone
to sing a song. He does not know
the song. They threaten him.
He does not know
how to escape.
He lives
with packed suitcases.

Face: pale, harmless,
tight-fitting glasses
along well-defined borders: nose,
eyes, forehead. The mouth
asking: am I beautiful?

Umbrella: open, covering a woman
against god’s grace. It has not rained
in fourteen days. She has her own
black heaven.

There now: people,
inhaling, even with a noose
around the neck, even without
air, even in error, even
as the answer eats the question.