1

 

 

She is not mad.

She does not want to hurt you.

You are not in her way.

She is not going to put you

in a room alone, forever.

It is not about your dead friend’s blue

tennis shoe you keep on your dresser.

It is not about the struggle for Europe,

the cruel posse chasing the

poor werewolf up the mountain.

You are a sweetening of her desire,

a fondness she has that is inexhaustable,

to remove your tight shoe.

 

 

2

 

 

I think of when Thomas Merton

stepped out of the bathtub,

wet and naked and

touched the fan and died,

the day Jesus said “It is finished.”

I think of when the birds are so still

they might not be there and

you’re not yet aware it is quiet,

that its source is they are not there.

Or maybe like the freeze frame,

there, but stilled, while in motion.

Or perhaps a prison, kind of sad alive,

a there with no other there.

Maybe after the ending breath we’ll be

rewarded for finally cleaning our plate,

be given that importancer inside silence,

perhaps a kind of room or field to wait in, to meet.

 

 

 3                                                                                                

 

Virgil Davis died yesterday, sudden.

Thirty eight years old, a big six foot

something, employed, mostly happy,

black hair, family, etc. Wasn’t

AIDS, muscular dystrophy, cancer,

some decent lava disease.

It was death. Killed him.

No disguise, flyers, nothing even

about being in the neighborhood.

ust came right up, said,

“Leave it all, everyone, now.”

 

 

4

 

 

Doris Farmer was thinner

    when  I came to call.

The broth and peas were

    cold and still in the

bowls by the bed. “They

    said six months but

I feel weaker by the day.”

    After a while her

dogs, a blond one and

    a dark brown one,

walked along side me

    to my car with

their happy tails. I drove

    down the street

to where a school bus

    was waiting, its

long red arm held out

    to the side that

said, “Stop.” Two small

    girls and a little

boy, even smaller, stepped

    down onto the

big road and crossed the

    street, empty lunch

pails in their small hands.

 

 

5

 

 

My wet fingers found a pelvic bone

and it frightened them.

They found it in the bathtub,

it belonged to them.

Now loose skin moves

over the knuckle of bone

like it was something separate,

never intending to stay.

The wrinkles say

we will follow time,

leave bone behind,

be afraid, then  not.

 

 

 6

 

 

Maybe it’s a small thing,

like light that leaks out under the door.

Maybe you’re just lifted up out of formation

like geese with new orders.

Maybe the world shudders,

the horizontal flickers,

senses, all senses, fade.

The night, the dark light appears.

The soul’s curved play comes into sight.