This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds’ night migrations.

It grieves me to think
the dead won’t see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.

What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won’t need
these pleasures anymore; 
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine.

  The rose upon my balcony the morning air perfuming,
  Was leafless all the winter time and pining for the spring;
  You ask me why her breath is sweet, and why her cheek is blooming,
  It is because the sun is out and birds begin to sing.

  The nightingale, whose melody is through the greenwood ringing,
  Was silent when the boughs were bare and winds were blowing keen:
  And if, Mamma, you ask of me the reason of his singing,
  It is because the sun is out and all the leaves are green.

  Thus each performs his part, Mamma; the birds have found their voices,
  The blowing rose a flush, Mamma, her bonny cheek to dye;
  And there's sunshine in my heart, Mamma, which wakens and rejoices,
  And so I sing and blush, Mamma, and that's the reason why.

Flashing in the grass; the mouth of a spider clung
     to the dark of it: the legs of the spider
held the tucked wings close,
     held the abdomen still in the midst of calling
with thrusts of phosphorescent light—

When I am tired of being human, I try to remember
     the two stuck together like burrs. I try to place them
central in my mind where everything else must
     surround them, must see the burr and the barb of them.
There is courtship, and there is hunger. I suppose
     there are grips from which even angels cannot fly.
Even imagined ones. Luciferin, luciferase.
     When I am tired of only touching,
I have my mouth to try to tell you
     what, in your arms, is not erased.

They leave you up there he said calling you names
As it gets dark remember for you’ve had the experience
Retaining barely a consciousness the body’d shrink away
But there’s only exposure the necessary fasting you are
     seen
They want to watch you all humans being empathic
     predators

And then I said when there is no conventional body
And little recognition of forms as in a violently painful
     half-sleep
You become your other after they have had you like a feast
This is done everywhere in many ways often subtly in an
     instant

You may so be done away with I had seen the impossibility
Of living with others yet loving for that was my condition
At the crossroads when they asked me to partake of rules
     as in
A commune of pretension I left unruly
Who stands by me now he or I say and I said last night
Holding the world together by my total recall
At anyone’s distress they are so sorry sounding like
     pigeons
They who call themselves poets and have no letters

My grandmother kisses
as if bombs are bursting in the backyard,
where mint and jasmine lace their perfumes
through the kitchen window,
as if somewhere, a body is falling apart
and flames are making their way back
through the intricacies of a young boy’s thigh,
as if to walk out the door, your torso
would dance from exit wounds.
When my grandmother kisses, there would be
no flashy smooching, no western music
of pursed lips, she kisses as if to breathe
you inside her, nose pressed to cheek
so that your scent is relearned
and your sweat pearls into drops of gold
inside her lungs, as if while she holds you
death also, is clutching your wrist.
My grandmother kisses as if history
never ended, as if somewhere
a body is still
falling apart.

It was taken some time ago.
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you see in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion

but if you look long enough,
eventually
you will be able to see me.)