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Under My Dress
Stretched
from a Dream
On the Front Porch and Nothing Else to
Do
The Iris
Waiting
In Fear For You To Return
Animal Again
Where Were You?
Beyond the Reach
The Unwanting Veins of White
Weeds
Particles
Under My Dress
Up under my dress
the breeze
like you
breathing
along the edges
of my legs
slipping in between
each step
up the street
with the wind
whispering
into places
that slide along
your fingers
licking
into curves
that sigh
deep
up
under my dress
At the bottom of
your words
is a crushed planet.
And the fences need mending
the orchard picked, the hens set.
This world was ours
stretched from a dream
into wide open fields.
I didn't know
I'd have to do it myself
until your words
of another woman.
On the Front Porch and Nothing
Else to Do
Suddenly I've come
upon myself.
A slow bend in the road shortened
and I heard myself say, "Say, here is what I've been missing."
It is nothing special and nothing anyone else would want--
merely a rocker on the front porch and nothing else to do.
It is here I make up songs to the chickadees
and offer tiny words to the juncos who fly into one season and stay.
In this autumn,
my hair turning as gray as low evening,
I rock back and forth, softly within the thin light
and know it's costly to want more than where I am.
The iris
in the eye of the wrong season
opened blood-purple
the first day of fall.
Nothing went right that year.
Waiting In Fear For You To Return
soon you'll know
that leaving you behind
gets easier with each breath
but you can taste a hundred miles away
my feet moving on
and you've come circling back before
leaning on a bad wind
eyes hunting for easy prey
circling back
circling in
because you need to beat
with angry black wings
anything that touches
you
deeply
because you can't find the spot yourself
Snow
ssssssflakes then freezes
sssssson her whiskers
until her mouth
is smiling crystals.
Behind her
reigns a heritage of white
and from somewhere inside
ssssssshe remembers
ssssssdancing across frozen lakes
ssssssand blending into the winter.
I see her though,
against the snow her hair tinged with age
and from lack
of a white need.
And all her pups came gray.
She lurches at
snow drifts-
ssssssbounding for higher ground
feet fumbling
for a surface.
She bites the snowballs I throw
and they dissolve on her tongue.
Leaving the wintered
field
she gladly comes
running ahead, first to the car.
She curls beside me
ssssssand the first thing she knows,
ssssssthe only thing remembered
is
lick ice from between frozen toes
lick and lick until winter is warm.
She'll sleep tonight
and twitch through ancient dreams
of iced homes
and frost
where numb padded feet
feel depths
of powdered caverns.
And she'll wake
ssssssconfusing the white today
sssssswith the stars of falling snow
that gently
fell
clinging to her eyelashes
centuries and centuries of white ago
and not remember
which one to believe.
I wanted to lean
into your heart the way trees take me in,
gently, completely.
I wanted to be
whole and sing and fly and laugh and dance
and be gone with hurt.
I wanted the sunset
to come quietly to us as lovely
as being born.
But I reached too
long and found my fingers dangling
in thin air.
Where were you when you were with me?
that push
to push more skin next to mine
that strain
of always moving towards
that push
for more and more
sunlight on open hips
is released
confetti loose on the wind
a celebration
of being golden inside, glowing
and unfettered
from such young yearnings
I'm in love with being beyond
the reach of more skin
the sleep was as
close to white as I've gotten.
none of the flowers woke me.
every two hours a nurse changed
the fluid into my arm
and let me sleep
into the white:
the disappearance of food
the disappearance of need
nothing moved.
I dreamed of pebbles
bleached white by the sun
in river beds
still, with no water;
the bones of weeds scratching
in the wind like needles.
"her uterus is inflamed"
someone whispered.
and I slept.
curled back into it
unaware of the babies I would never have;
and we slept together in the same fluids
holding on
tiny hands grasping for edges of anything.
but I kept floating off the sheets
into corners of the room
to rest against the cool white walls
to rest near some ending
to rest from wanting.
I kept floating off the sheets
into this
till the nurses came
and prodded me down
into the horrible living colors of continuing.
I've lost a child
and no one hears the sighing from the vigil.
I carry a grave in my stomach.
Somewhere he's with his father
in a city,
now another woman's child.
Next year he will barely remember
how I helped him to say his name.
It's been one more winter between us.
The separation grows more and more
quiet each morning
as I move deeper and deeper into my stomach
where the scent of cities and stolen babies
isn't so brittle.
I live in the foothills now
where sunsets burn like wild weeds
and tremble among their own colors, amazed.
My stomach's dry, turning the color
of earthen floors;
and I offer bowls of water to anyone
who will listen.
He moves through me,
his name still in my mouth
like a vesper rocking, rocking.
But there is never enough water to be born again.
And I cry along with the evening wolves
as their young are caught one by one
in traps along the creek
among the tall careless weeds.
I sleep with books
all over my bed,
hardly room for myself.
A lovely coziness.
It's impossible to be angry
lying in a hammock
all afternoon.
My neighbor Julie
on her porch this morning
cleared her throat
and sounded like a dove.
I've loved
all over the place.
Now I want
silence.
On the path
rain drops fell
between my breasts.
Good
to be touched
there again.
Rain slants from the north.
All afternoon a book in my lap.
Nothing wrong here.
Crickets
stitch
all the seams
of the evening
together.
Somewhere above me
is a nest,
a naked bird.
I found half an egg shell.
My breasts sag now
settling
into contentment.
These jays.
They screech and scold me
as I sit
in my own garden.
The sun burned brighter
and brighter
through the window
'til I was in a halo.
The hard voice of reason
never seems to penetrate.
I follow my nose
everywhere.
Morning frost.
The lettuce still happy.
Salad tonight.
Narrow path up the hill.
How many poems
have begun here?
Drawing the thin flower
I finally understood
prayer.
Coming down the
mountain
a storm on my heels
I'm grateful to have a home.
Playing the piano
I got lost
and didn't want
to come back.
Jagged,
wicked little world:
I've learned the stench
of being cut
and never quite dying.
I miss you
the way chocolate ice cream tastes
after a sad movie.
