ARCHITECTURE
I wanted my hands
under the arc, the descending
edge where the passion wiggles
and keeps its rosy gleam,
a separate universe down where the melon
weight is its own ocean.
Urizen and his tricky bag begin
under the ripples, the crescents beyond
arcs, the squiggles of uniquenessesC
can these be so lumped one
after another?
Serried beyond squid,
pollywog, women and men,
the holds of dos and et ceteras,
there’s no breath or television
for perspective.
This curvature
of God, how can it be
giving?
Even to tally calories, or the metals
in blood there’s no score, no board
meetings or guarantees, only a language
contract effects a little link,
a hammer pounding out eternity
in every exchange: a keystone
is where the corners meet.
MODES OF DISCOURSE
Speaking of ebonics, table manners, terrible
films we stayed
up too late for, and trying to find light-foot
words to chase
sentiment back to its fox hole so we can go on
living: checkbooks, trash
bags, diapers.
Neatness counts in love, to name this sort of thing: cleanliness,
the attributes of deity, brooms, brillo pads that
hold suds so nicely, the muck
trucked in from language that needs a good
scrubbing. I saw,
when you opened the closet, shirts in drawers,
socks in the hamper, the used envelope
on the chest I’m saving for a secret love message
to be scrawled in my illegible cursive.
I was at the desk the whole time you complained
about the phone
billCreceipts all around your toes, a pencil holding
back your hair, a calculatorC
scheming to get your attention, have you fall
backwards laughing, waking the neighborhoods
and swamps laughing. But I was silentCthinking of the row
of neat tooth brushes and lip sticks, clutters of
books in the hallway, dead gnats and
realized that, like a house without furniture, I
have not named you.
SIX WEEKS
Breasts
perfect and unfathomable
If Jesus came home he would be unable to say
as
cantaloupe, form and content:
how to get another to read
presence
realized by the infant’s
one’s mind, the mysterious codes of body
suck: a
connection, an absence that makes
out as black petals, layered as vulva.
room for
essence: as close as love
and
instinct and language can fold
Jesus never had a son to tuck
one to one
to one. in pacifier and
nursery fables, never
the triangle of child,
time and desire, of distinct
Borders. It’s degrading to command borders. He fulfilled laws, snuffed
sexuality
which has its own desires of
every angle. Could he comfort one
meaning and
language, who recalls where her
breasts and ribs meet?
and in the
fifth week
I
understand, I allow There are
various Edens sometimes rotting
the text
and reader because I am the
crossfire of command and yearning,
not proud,
I’m reliving the scenes mingling
singularity. Such is only for us
of
desireCsuccess and failure, to
administer, to figure: How to
communicate
a giving?
THERE THERE MUST BE REASONS
1. Timponogos
The crest cuts up out of the city, knife
shunt over all the trees. The square, blunt edge,
stone diceCdon’t roll over till you get down
the glacier; even early September.
Some small grass in this thin air, not enough
for the goats who stay belowCbut here they
are wisps and seeds, unbloom, no bees, they push
born of rock, the very end of the world
for what sun they can, what pools form on their
sheer ledge.
Ice will layer even the edge,
make it smooth and mute in season, bring
a figment of purpose even to this
weed who would like so much to be eaten.
2. Black Box Narrows
Closer to the center, more agony
in the black faces, twisted by rivers
of brown San Pete waters that can trickle
morning and flood that same noon, drowning
a lone hiker whose foot, jammed in between
boulders could watch the black clouds gather
through
a slit in the earth’s crust, could drink the rain
and regard the dumb beauty of driftwood
as he tries to break his leg, the rock, any
thing before the river, it’s on the rise,
its roar, it’s peacefully molding stone cliffs
in its wicked curves: Picasso faces,
Van Gogh.
You have to imagine what stories
they hide, what reason their maniacal laughter.
3. Beach at Destin
Dead jellyfish everywhere, bladders drained,
squashed.
You can touch the brain part, but beware
the squirmy mop-hair arms that twine and tingle
a numb fish; for you a fork under the skin.
This winter’s so cold they froze on sand, white
as icebergs.
They were taught to beware arctic
waters, the gloom and green light of frozen
seas. The
cerulean gulf made them tiny
clouds, puffing through space on important sub-
missions: seek and destroy, eat everything
you find.
In the end, even this two-foot
swell could reject them. I went in up to
the anklesCached the bones so bad I thought
of the Pacific, of why I’m here at all.
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Last updated: May 1, 2001.