i think a good one would be:
the sky is petty enough without us
pestering it for stars. or, relatedly:
a good star is hard to find. or somehow
under an orange rind you’ll rustle up a star. or: betelgeuse
is a hell of a way to spend a night. or
better a cluster of stars than another bad sleep.
you cannot dream with your mouth
open and catch the light of the right star.
if you stretch across a bed you will find the light
of it still across your arm like lotion.
if i exaggerate, and call attention to nothing,
it is because as of late, i’ve become 
a hard star out of focus. to catasterize, to place
among the stars, is to curse a foe with darkest ink.
imagine the galaxy as a fable of spilled milk. picture
wanting lemonade. i suppose some of these
are more idioms of space. a shame that any time of year,
whatever you are feeling, the sky at night 
remains the same. or what i mean to say is i’m never sure
the season, but yes, i dream of her.

You won’t feel like this forever, unless

           forever is here. Follow the dark blue

blades of kale, the flat dials of sunflowers

           leading back to speech, or its underside.  

Love translated you across an ocean

           & now you cannot really come away 

or say how, exactly, your love began. 

           Was it music in the mouth, or weeping

in the blood? The ancestral body splits
           
           into water & seeds, pure syllables.  

^{translated from the German by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky}

She sits upon my bed at dusk, unsought,
And makes my soul obedient to her will,
And in the twilight, still as dreams are still,
Her pupils narrow to bright threads that thrill 
About the sensuous windings of her thought.

And on the neighboring couch, spread crepitant, 
The pointed-patterned, pale narcissus fling 
Their hands toward the pillow, where yet cling 
His kisses, and the dreams thence blossoming,— 
On the white beds a sweet and swooning scent.

The smiling moonwoman dips in cloudy swells,
And my wan, suffering psyches know new power, 
Finding their strength in conflict’s tortured hour.

Sphinx

 Sie sitzt an meinem Bette in der Abendzeit 
Und meine Seele tut nach ihrem Willen, 
Und in dem Dämmerscheine, traumesstillen, 
Engen wie Fäden dünn sich ihre Glanzpupillen 
Um ihrer Sinne schläfrige Geschmeidigkeit. 

Und auf dem Nebenbette an den Leinennähten
Knistern die Spitzenranken von Narzissen,
Und ihre Hände dehnen breit sich nach dem Kissen
Auf dem noch Träume blühn aus seinen Küssen,
Wie süßer Duft auf weißen Beeten.

Und lächelnd taucht die Mondfrau in die Wolkenwellen
Und meine bleichen, leidenden Psychen
Erstarken neu im Kampf mit Widersprüchen.

Being a cult figure is the essence of being 
a paradox in which someone 
has managed to get themselves linked

to the theoretically real while 
simultaneously getting themselves tied 
to conventional assumptions about being

this close to being a deity. They may, 
in that cryptic state, serve as both 
an extra without lines and the sole reason

center stage was invented. A cult figure 
can’t die, clearly a plus. Likewise, 
they get to be objects, playthings

of intellectual exchange between like minds 
and antagonists. That said, these icons  
are never merely after-the-fact abstractions.

No. Although anyone can hope 
to have a dahlia named after them—
wrongly assuming that nature will then

be forced to remember their name—
that path ignores the fact that nature 
is yet another meaningless conceit

over which people gush and go on and on 
about. “Using one’s imagination” 
is a far better way of gaining possession

of a new reality. One simply denies 
reality in favor of believing 
whatever one wants reality to be. It is this

that makes it possible to turn a ‘special girl’ 
into a cult figure—one that can be either 
a virgin, or, you know, “like a virgin.”

Such as the lobster 
cracking loose 
from its exoskeleton 
after moons of moulting,  
or the viper that squeezes 
out of the skin 
of its remembrance, 
this oracle invites you
to rewild yourself,
to unbox, detox, and de-
clutter your blood. 
Break free from the mold
you made for yourself, 
for the animal 
in you that craves 
routines like sugar,
addicted to the stress 
of your comforts. Sling 
your arm around the waist 
of your discomfort
like it’s a new lover
in these uncharted 
seas and distances 
untraversed. Take
and give glee. 
Summon surprise.
Something whim-
sical this way comes. 
It smells something 
like wishes wrapped 
in wind as you
trod the winding path 
through 
the forests 
of your interior. 
Be warned. You will
bewilder beloveds. 
Hush. Some 
events are better
experienced than 
explained. Take soul.
Your joy is your job;
and yours alone. 
Hire your
self every day. 
Climb into your traveling
shoes knowing that
there, too, will 
be dancing.

Over the screech of the morning 
traffic of Eagle Rock Boulevard
I thought I heard the rooster 
from my parents’ backyard,
calling. They lived close enough,
it could have been. I’d been
awake for hours but was still 
in bed looking out the window
where a flock of red-crowned parrots
skated through the blue. 
The Echo Park Parrots. 
The Pasadena Parrots. The Silver-
lake Parrots. Everyone wants 
to own the birds, yet
here they were this morning,
serenading me. 
They come and go, they came
and went. In my dreams, I’m sometimes
a chicken. I fly from one man
to the next, hoping their arms
are strong like guava branches,
strong enough to roost 
in for the night, ripe with seeds. 
I’m malnourished in my dreams
because there are no trees, just birds
in nonstop flight and song.

When we were birds,
we veered & wheeled, we flapped & looped—

it’s true, we flew. When we were birds,
we dined on tiny silver fish
& the watery hearts
of flowers. When we were birds

we sistered the dragonfly,
brothered the night-wise bat,

& sometimes when we were birds

we rose as high as we could go—
light cold & strange—

& when we opened our beaked mouths
sundown poured like wine
down our throats.

When we were birds
we worshipped trees, rivers, mountains,

sage knots, rain, gizzard rocks, grub-shot dung piles,

& like all good beasts & wise green things
the mothering sun. We had many gods
when we were birds,

& each in her own way
was good to us, even winter fog,

which found us huddling
in salal or silk tassel,
singing low, sweet songs & closing
our blood-rich eyes & sleeping
the troubled sleep of birds. Yes,

even when we were birds
we were sometimes troubled & tired,

sad for no reason, 

& so pretended we were not birds
& fell like stones—

the earth hurtling up to meet us,
our trussed bones readying
to be shattered, our unusually large hearts
pounding for nothing—

yet at the last minute we would flap
& lift, & as we flew, shudderingly away,

we told ourselves that this falling—

we would remember. We thought
we would always
be birds. We didn’t know.

We didn’t know
we could love one another

with such ferocity. That we should.

Opened
between
void and
recognition.
The not
vivid.
Color
empty,
casual.
Unlike
memory,
bliss in dark-
ness, an
announcement.
Movement
outlined
not
contained
—a small
feeling, I
can’t, like
happiness
outlived.
A month.
The trim
clock.
The same
indignity:
elevator,
groceries,
an armload
of August
wildflowers.
My friend,
nowhere.
Duration.
To this
collapsing
hall, this
charging late
gold in summer,
my color.
—Eyes
close,
the answer
between
everything.
Peony.
Chamomile.
Marigold.
The flagrant
underworld
opened now
against
metaphor …
The moral
of the flower
is the
flower.

^{translated from the Chinese by Ezra Pound}

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers 
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, 
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. 
And we went on living in the village of Chokan: 
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful. 
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. 
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling, 
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours 
Forever and forever, and forever. 
Why should I climb the lookout?

At sixteen you departed, 
You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies, 
And you have been gone five months. 
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead. 
You dragged your feet when you went out. 
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, 
Too deep to clear them away! 
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. 
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August 
Over the grass in the West garden, 
They hurt me. 
I grow older,
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you, 
                              As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

My daughter says six is her favorite year ever
though she suspects that seven will be better.
Her dress spins down the corridor.
It’s made of butterflies and billowing
like the memory of a chocolate souffle.
Was I ever more like her than like me,
shoulders not flagging, breath hot
with awe as I sidestepped each stone,
the promise of age like a helium balloon
dragging me behind it on a flouncy string?
My daughter tries to show me everything
she’s left a mark on: painted clay,
a smiley-faced cotton ball perched on a stick.
her name in all-caps on an envelope.
Does she already somewhere in her spleen
or pancreas, in the soft tissues and marrow, sense
that the impossible goal is, for all of us,
just to keep going? No, she is not grieving
over Goldengrove whatever. Six is her favorite 
year ever, I feel not so much nostalgia
as Sehnsucht, the desire for something
missing, vertigo under the infinite sky. 
We crane our twin heads as a falcon or drone
pierces the cloud cover into the future.
How to get closer to the mystery.
Older, she will do whatever: name a new nation,
isolate a microbe, hear the whales mutter
the muscadine water. Every time the regimes change
she will dance Swan Lake, bending her knees
at the requisite intervals. Attagirl, daughter! 
The economy continues to show resilience
in the face of despair and mass depredation.
My daughter is swan. Is crab grass run riot.
Meanwhile, I am becoming unrecognizable
to everyone except myself, and it does not matter:
before it is time to resemble no one
I have had the mixed fortune to resemble most things.
My shadow lingers in the corner of the photo of the painting.
I may not know more than a bedraggled llama
craning its neck past the impregnable fence. Still,
I participated in the world. I wore the ceremonial
knee breeches required by protocol.
Led her through ferry boats and Ferris wheels,
this ardent daughter clinging to my hand
as though it was God’s hand on a church ceiling.
We took turns licking the strawberry ice cream.
In this knowledge, I feel content.

                Between letting go and setting free
There was a difference I assumed
                I was. Graceless. Arrogant. Venomous
As a point. Horsehair slacking. Bow
                Shaking from deep within. Air cut
Without a trace. There was faith, a drawing
                Close, closer, close enough, then

Too close. Hoping, missing, resuming—
                Into the shadows I had taken me
As far as I could. Soul. Soil. Silt. Sullied current
                I proved I could step into once
More. Forest. Mountain. Desert. Blood,
                My resource and recourse. While at war
In my mind, I went farther than I thought—

                Archer, I am my errors. Arching, I erred
In desire. Am I my target? Expect no mercy.
                For better or worse, whatever happens,
I’ll be even better. I’ll be even worse—
                Let’s go. Nobody is expecting us. Get ready.
Gone is the hour of ghosts over the gulf
                Like whales, a memory, breaching surface

From depths unknown, stuck in between
                Land and what is and what if and sea and
I suppose for air. A moment that wasn’t
                This, we turned on. Resplendent. Meet me
At the shore. I aim with my life to prove
                We can be happier than the ones we love.
The difference is distance, set. Crossed. Freed—

^{for J.}

Afloat out on the starlit water
where ordinary life’s a dream
as to two figures in a frame,
I touch the moon, and watch it shatter.

But when I touch you, you remain,
my body weightless in your arms
while quietly your hand conforms
to the hard griefs along my spine.

Beneath the sky’s unseeing eyes
I let my head rest in your palm,
making a little world of calm
for luck and longing to revise 

scenes too early to recall—
the frightened mouth, the soured breast,
abandoned den or splintered nest
resurfaced in the Lovers’ Pool.

Where our bodies intersect
like children whose fingers cross
to make a promise promise less
and guard this moment from the next.

And now before you disappear,
I’ve brought us once again to soak
in sulfur, salt, and arsenic,
so that in here, we’re always there.

^{translated from the Italian by Will Schutt}

You pursue me with a thought, are a thought 
that comes to me without thinking, like a shiver 
you slowly scorch my skin and lead my eyes 
toward a clear point of light. You’re a memory 
retrieved and glowing, you’re my dream 
beyond dreams and memories, the door that closes 
and opens onto a wild river. You’re something 
no word can express, and in every word you resonate 
like the echo of a slow exhale, you’re my wind 
rustling the spring foliage, the voice that calls 
from a place I do not know but recognize as mine.
You’re the howl of a wolf, the voice of the deer 
alive and mortally wounded. My stellar body.

Corpo Stellare 

Mi segui con un pensiero, sei un pensiero 
che non devo nemmeno pensare, come un brivido 
mi strini piano la pelle, muove gli occhi 
verso un punto chiaro di luce. Sei un ricordo 
perduto e luminoso, sei il mio sogno 
senza sogno e senza ricordi, la porta che chiude 
e apre sulla corrente di un fiume impetuoso. Sei una cosa 
che nessuna parola può dire e che in ogni parola 
risuona come l’eco di un lento respiro, sei il mio vento 
di foglie e primavere, la voce che chiama 
da un posto che non so e riconosco e che è mio.
Sei l’ululato di un lupo, la voce del cervo 
vivo e ferito a morte. Il mio corpo stellare.

^{translated from the Croatian by James Meetze}

^{Cork, Ireland}

is like a church bell 
in some remote village 
tolling mutely in the evening
through the musty provincial air 
self-obliviously 
and quite self-sufficiently  
—one might add—
if it weren’t for the pair of those 
ragged sheep 
huddled before the rain 
on the empty lot 
in front of a stone barn 
bobbing their whitish little heads 
here and there 
just to let you know 
that regardless of medium 
the message will always 
arrive at the destination.

Poezija u malom jeziku

^{Cork, Irska}

poezija u malom jeziku
je kao zvono
u zabačenom selu
što tuče muklo s večeri
kroz memlu provincije
samozaboravno
i poprilično samodovoljno
—reklo bi se—
da nije tih par kuštravih ovaca
skutrenih pred pljusak
u oboru
ispred kamene pojate
što malo-malo
trznu bjelkastim glavama
da ti daju do znanja
da bez obzira na medij
poruka uvijek
stiže na odredište.

^{To a Friend.}

The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend, 
Freedom is but a means to gain an end. 
Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine 
Be consecrate to thought still more divine. 
The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw 
Is liberty to comprehend the law. 
Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame, 
Comprising means and end in Truth’s great name.

^{translated from the Spanish by Janet Hendrickson}

That year, we knew the sky existed 
because we believed in the storm, 
but we never saw the sky.

Shut in from morning until night, 
we couldn’t stop talking about what we’d do after. 
The sea hanging from our tongues. Extinct horses 
went up and down the hills we claimed to know.

After a while, the wind changed, 
it went from west to east and didn’t stop, 
the street filled with rooks and wild dogs, 
and the light became a cliff at day’s end.

And we were each afraid, 
afraid of the noise of the neighbors  
and the absence of noise, 
of the huge tail of the rat descending from the roof, 
of the fighting of the rooks outside

afraid of the children’s insistent question, 
which was always the same, and afraid of memory, 
since we had started to confuse the old days 
with what we imagined lie ahead 
and soon, we no longer knew whether life was just a wish.

We lived a day that went beyond its limits 
like a train longer than the city where it stops.

That year, we survived for seven hundred days. 
Thousands of hours of cold for a single night.

Invierno

Aquel año sabíamos que existía el cielo  
porque creíamos en la tempestad, 
pero jamás veíamos el cielo. 

Encerrados de la mañana a la noche,  
no dejábamos de hablar sobre lo que haríamos más tarde.  
El mar pendía de la lengua. Caballos extintos 
bajaban y subían las colinas que decíamos conocer.

Luego de un tiempo, el viento cambió,  
fue del oeste al este sin detenerse, 
la calle se llenó de grajos y perros salvajes, 
y la luz se volvió un precipicio al final del día.

Y cada uno de nosotros tuvo miedo,  
miedo del ruido de los vecinos y la ausencia de ruido, 
de la cola enorme de la rata que bajaba del techo, 
de la pelea de los grajos afuera, 

miedo de la insistente pregunta de los niños,  
que era siempre la misma, y miedo de la memoria, 
pues empezamos a confundir los días antiguos 
con lo que imaginábamos para más adelante, 
y pronto, ya no supimos si la vida era solo un deseo.

Vivíamos un día que se salía de sus márgenes  
como un tren más extenso que la ciudad a donde llega.

Aquel año, sobrevivimos por setecientos días. 
Miles de horas de frío para una sola noche. 

^{translated from the French by the author}

Who crosses into you when you cross 

Who crosses when you don’t cross 

Who doesn’t cross when you cross 

Who crosses when you can’t cross 

Who doesn’t cross when you don’t cross 

Who doesn’t want to cross 

Who thinks they’re crossing 

Who doesn’t look at you while crossing 

Who might take the time to look at you. 
 

Poème du 24 septembre

Qui traverse en toi quand tu traverses  

Qui traverse quand tu ne traverses pas  

Qui ne traverse pas quand tu traverses  

Qui traverse quand tu ne peux pas traverser  

Qui ne traverse pas quand tu ne traverses pas  

Qui ne veut pas traverser  

Qui croit traverser  

Qui ne te regarde pas en traversant  

Qui prendra peut-être le temps de te regarder. 

^{translated from the Italian by Gioia Guerzoni}

In the middle of a winter night 
my father who was not yet dead 
came to visit me in a dream as if dead. 
Wake me up I asked him but he hesitated 
and the terror that he liked death paralyzed me. 
Lift our eyelids—I said without a voice, 
let’s open our eyes wide on what is real. 
Tiredly—I knew he was struggling—I tightened his fingers 
around a dirty-green railing that needed repainting. 
Only then, I think he could feel my hands 
or maybe understand the work that remained: 
the iron to scrape the spatula the paint to choose 
he attempted his usual half smile. He let go 
and made me move on to another dream.

2022, gennaio

Nel mezzo di una notte d’inverno 
mio padre che non era ancora morto 
venne a trovarmi in sogno come morto. 
Svegliami gli chiesi ma esitava 
e il terrore che la morte gli piacesse mi paralizzava. 
Apriamo le palpebre—dissi senza voce, 
spalanchiamo gli occhi su quello che è reale. 
Con fatica—sapevo che faceva fatica—gli strinsi le dita 
intorno a una ringhiera verde-sporco da riverniciare. 
Solo allora credo sentendo le mie mani 
o piuttosto capendo il lavoro che restava: 
il ferro da scrostare la spatola la vernice da scegliere 
abbozzò il suo mezzo sorriso abituale. Lasciò la presa 
e mi fece passare a un altro sogno.

^{translated from the Vietnamese by Phương Anh}

to whisper.the flowers await eagerly 
night holds onto the traveler’s feet.a wafting scent
butterfly wings flash.moon echoes.wind rises
a shadow is growing.the lingering agarwood? 

you bend to pick up your shadow that was dropped 
sky and earth convulse in all directions
destruction weighs on my shoulders.endless
human lives have left behind sediments.a bud of scent

that night.was it the final night?
i lie, listening.to the trees and leaves call each other 
the flock of small birds on the branches.stop.singing
hiding in the heart forever a soul enchanted!

Đêm tận tuyệt (final final night)

kể gì.những bông hoa ngóng đợi
đêm cầm chân lữ khách.một làn hương
cánh bướm chớp.vang lừng trăng.gió nổi
bóng ai về vời vợi quá. trầm vương?

em cúi nhặt bóng mình vừa rơi xuống
đất trời như kính động khắp nghìn phương
niềm hư hoại oằn vai.vô lượng
kiếp người vừa đọng lại.một chồi hương

đêm hôm ấy.có là đêm tận tuyệt?
tôi nằm nghe.cây lá gọi nhau về
bầy chim nhỏ trên cành.thôi.không hót
giấu trong lòng mai mãi một hồn mê!

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt—a wind to freeze;
Sad patience—joyous energies;
Humility—yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity—reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel—Art.

My father read a mountain aloud.

Opened to a page 
where a green bird lands on a thunderclap.

Named for the billowing hands of 
brittle blue flowers.

As if the unfinished poetry of the paraffin

is pulled aside like scenery, 
so that I may write by the only light I know.

My father read only his one life and recited 
the last line over and over.

The book is written in giant letters of fog 
that wander like goats across the alpine pastures.

The moon is dog-eared as if the treetops looking up 
have studied the idea of love too much.

On a page with some scattered pine needles, 
a voice goes on calling out to me.

My father learned to read 
in a one-room schoolhouse,

and never read a poem.

A little herd of lightning 
gets spoken out loud in the dark.

Change 
is scenic and sudden.

One year, I came home 
and all the leaves fell off my father.

After that, 
he was winter.

Fall fell wind-wise today—
trembles of dried lilac stalks, dead
hydrangea that couldn’t reach
water, all the finches and wrens
boldly on the move. Fall fell, my friend.
It ended summer like the last page
of the last chapter of your life.
What can I do about the turbulent
underneaths impossible to tamp down—
my yard stripped to incidentals—
sifted and judged, rearranged?
If work is sacred, as we both believed,
it also exacts a tax: the rake’s
black splinter in the heel
of my thumb, a few new blisters.
I still can’t accept life’s abandon,
how the leaves are our lives
and not at the same time,
or that the fence, its posts bearing
so much weight, are a symbol
of my own manhood
beginning to rot. I’m sorry if some
of these images aren’t tried and true.
The best pictures I’ll ever make
(and man, I wish I could text them to you)
were taken today in my yard,
my finger touching a white digital button
to capture some delight amidst
death itself, Olivia hiding inside
the great mound we gathered
despite the whipping wind, her face
bursting with joy—as she emerged
from our quarry and kicked
the leaves out, as she tossed up armfuls.

I walk the world with a locked box
Lodged in my chest. Doctor, it hurts
But not as much as it should. In Bucha,

On the roadway of the Street of Apples
A woman lay four weeks straight
Unburied even by snow. They saw her red

Coat and rolled right over, Russians,
Tanked and vigilant in their to and fro. 
Doctor, there’s nothing wrong with me

That isn’t also true of many others. 
At night I sleep under a vast epiphany
That hasn’t descended upon me,

Pinpricks that shine a white writing 
I can’t read. I don’t want to know 
Yet. Instead I ask to stay here, greedy 

For the smell of autumn. Before 
Leaving, I’ve made a miniature of me
To witness the raising of the sea, 

To watch over the unimaginable,
To greet this revelation of a future 
With those new names it will need.  

I don’t know what carried me here 
to Monterchi, perched above mountain bulges 
shaped like the side-bellies of well-fed sheep. 
Or why, when taken in 
to view Piero’s fresco of the Madonna del Parto,
I feel like an intruder
walking in on a girl—tangled in teenhood—
loosening the buttons of her faded lapis robe. 
Flanked by two boy-angels, she is heavy 
with child, anchored in a tent of light-grey fur, 
drapes the color of dried blood. 
Her oval eyes, downcast, direct my gaze 
to her right hand, hanging above a slit 
of white cloth that covers from breast-bone
to navel. Her fingers are soft but gnarled, 
perhaps from twisting and untwisting her hair 
late at night. Does she believe no one 
will notice the crooked fingers of her left hand 
curled into hip, as if trying to hide 
the fingernails’ insatiable need to fidget, pick? 
Her hands pull me back to the pouty nineteen year-old
I once was: dressed in baggy denim cut-offs, 
cream-colored peasant blouse, my fingers tapped 
uncontrollably on invisible piano keys
lining my outer thighs. Walking home
I was petrified my mother—who knew I was too young 
to be a mother—would notice my skin-glow, 
feigned half-smile. Now, fifty years later, facing 
the Madonna, I wonder how Piero knew  
to mute most of the fear on her face 
with shades of pearl. She looks serene
yet distracted—like when something 
has already happened without announcing itself.
Like the low, faint hum of a hymn 
that stays long after an angel leaves. Like the newfound
power she did not choose, but one that will be 
hers forever after she is drained dry.

Hold on, they said, but she was tiny and let
the kite go flying above tears and treetops.
The kite had a will of its own, and its will
was wind which carried it the way love carries
surrender and forgiveness. I was right behind
and watched until hope was a speck and gone.
I’d have let it swoop me up the way a bird
of prey lifts a rabbit or a mouse, not afraid
to rub my nose in sky and roll about in deep
fields of snow far above cirrostratus.
Not afraid to let bliss devour me whole.
Or grief, if I must live my forever in orbit
with the Wolf Moon as it prowls night
after night howling for the wilderness we lost.

Even though it stands: the biggest sky of my life
remains above that strip mall parking lot,
I don’t think I could ever go back.
The blurry drives with no destination,
reaching for something, who knows what, beyond
the sunroof. Dragged a couch onto a frozen lake.
Chased small things into the corners.
Swiped at it with a broom. Dreamt 
of my dead & was made of that dreaming.
If asked now what keeps my attention,
I’d point to the stage where some queen
trapped in time, mouths the words
to a song only she knows.
Something gray saps the back of my throat.
What saves my teeth from my teeth
is a piece of gum older, I think, than millennia.
Before I even realize he’s gone, my lover returns
& hands me a cup of water.
More & more it means something to be alive.
It’s important that I write this now before I forget,
this now which has happened so suddenly
I have to rub my eyes to join it, this now which might
seem insignificant for those of you reading
over my shoulder as I type this out on my phone
in the middle of the dance floor.
The rude & sudden light, for which I apologize.

I do not know the ocean’s song, 
    Or what the brooklets say; 
At eve I sit and listen long, 
    I cannot learn their lay. 
But as I linger by the sea, 
    And that sweet song comes unto me, 
It seems, my love, it sings of thee.

I do not know why poppies grow, 
    Amid the wheat and rye, 
The lilies bloom as white as snow, 
    I cannot tell you why. 
But all the flowers of the spring, 
    The bees that hum, the birds that sing, 
A thought of you they seem to bring.

I cannot tell why silvery Mars, 
    Moves through the heav’ns at night; 
I cannot tell you why the stars, 
    Adorn the vault with light. 
But what sublimity I see, 
    Upon the mount, the hill, the lea, 
It brings, my love, a thought of thee.

I do not know what in your eyes, 
    That caused my heart to glow, 
And why my spirit longs and cries, 
    I vow, I do not know. 
But when you first came in my sight, 
    My slumbering soul awoke in light, 
And since the day I’ve known no night.

You drag the boat across the tallgrass, shake out 
the black snakes that made a provisional home under the bow 
through the length of winter. The rope undone 
for the first time in months, it slews behind you 
through dirt, then shallow water, a thin trail 
that follows you deeper into the afternoon, submits to the pull 
of you, or perhaps the pull of the other shore. So sure you are 
in your solitude, and I am startled to sit here, witness it. 
How smooth is your sailing away, this measured 
but steady drifting under pink, penumbral light. When we first met
you portioned your stories, or they came brash, a light tower’s 
unpredictable beam. Resolving to muteness the year your father 
could no longer hear you, then woodwork, then a decade
of travel. Tulum. The Mont Blanc where the five-foot two French guide 
hauled you out of a crevasse. The Norwegian girl you met at a bar 
in Cambodia who followed you back, wanting 
to show you the ring on her labia. Her Janis Joplin tattoo. I follow you now 
with my late summer eyes. Why do I love watching you like that, 
cruising away from me? As if you are teaching me something 
about love and distance. Two red-tailed hawks surrender 
their shadows to the thicket of spruces. You stare up, 
then past your left shoulder. I think, at me. The wind tugs at every 
boat in our world. A hushed push and pull, a measure of faith 
travels the distance between us. Buoyant as day, thin as light.

Wakening in the night, the pain that slumber 
Strikes with her mace of silence dead and dumb 
Loomed over me and, formless, said, “I come! 
Bringing illusions lost beyond all number. 
Rigid you lie, yet for a little cumber 
This flaming world, where some die proudly, some 
Glitter like granite, or dream millenium.” 
It left me toiled in mountainous clouds of umber.

I lay sustaining all the old emotion, 
Numbed as beneath the blows of iron cars. 
Then slowly, slowly some supreme devotion 
Crept down, and drew me out of ageless wars, 
Like a dear voice heard over darkened ocean 
When all dim heaven is trembling into stars.

Isn’t it hard to see light’s bearing 
against the wall? The animals know where heat
is going. All I care about is holding a story 
in my hands. The square, the smell, 
the movement. When I fly my throat into a morning, 
the lint molts off in ceaseless presents. No witch, 
no word, that’s how dull the smoke was, two stories 
up, holding my head above my foot. Isn’t saying 
Now  hard? The after of the stain 
becomes juice, or medicine, and the sun is like the sun 
in a movie, how it slants across the bed.

One bridge and then another over the fisherman’s net  
of steel water and high, secreting grasses. 

Here the bare cypress trees throw themselves from the banks 
like wailing women, their hands scraping at the sky’s silent faces  
in the grey rags of Spanish moss. 

This home is always shifting, the water reaching up to take 
what it will. There are days I cannot find myself  

between the steps of my parents’ home and the long sigh  
of afternoon rain. Each time I leave 

it is the last time. Time passes faster when I am not there 
so now she does not know my face 

and the house has sunk further into unkempt green.  
How far can we carry memory before it is something else? 

How long can a man at sea call himself her husband 
and not someone who is lost? 

Between here and what’s not, I come, as all strangers,  
to the door to wait for the stranger who answers.

If you come up the path through time’s   
protensity you’ll find me  

in this yellow November, a muddle of sun  
beside me on the ground. I’ll be lost  

in thought, unhappy with the common   
marigold’s heavy stink, dreaming of feathery things 

with berries. Come intently up the path   
through extensities of space. 

Tough zinnias come up & find me. Why not you?  
They are loud flowers that bear witness 

to past waterings by blooming   
through drought. I’ll be thinking I must  

become something that thrives   
in dry weather. Come calmly up the path.  

Be so present even eyes dimmed by bitters   
can track you into the pastel asters.  

Don’t make me wait. I’ll be fidgeting   
with the unrest brought on by fatal weather.  

What will become of us? I think  
our attributes will be engraved inside a promise  

ring in a script too small to read.   
Come quietly and be undimmed.  

When I see you, my eyes will fill   
with “really?” I’ll stand there 

trying to decide if you are cool enough   
to make any trace of warmth  

seem welcome or warm enough   
to make any residue of cold  

negotiable. I’ll say if you’ve come   
to tell me you’re going, please go.

I who, conceived beneath another star, 
Had been a prince and played with life, instead 
Have been its slave, an outcast exiled far 
From the fair things my faith has merited. 
My ways have been the ways that wanderers tread 
And those that make romance of poverty— 
Soldier, I shared the soldier’s board and bed, 
And Joy has been a thing more oft to me 
Whispered by summer wind and summer sea 
Than known incarnate in the hours it lies 
All warm against our hearts and laughs into our eyes.

I know not if in risking my best days 
I shall leave utterly behind me here 
This dream that lightened me through lonesome ways 
And that no disappointment made less dear; 
Sometimes I think that, where the hilltops rear 
Their white entrenchments back of tangled wire, 
Behind the mist Death only can make clear, 
There, like Brunhilde ringed with flaming fire, 
Lies what shall ease my heart’s immense desire: 
There, where beyond the horror and the pain 
Only the brave shall pass, only the strong attain.

Truth or delusion, be it as it may, 
Yet think it true, dear friends, for, thinking so, 
That thought shall nerve our sinews on the day 
When to the last assault our bugles blow: 
Reckless of pain and peril we shall go, 
Heads high and hearts aflame and bayonets bare, 
And we shall brave eternity as though 
Eyes looked on us in which we would seem fair— 
One waited in whose presence we would wear, 
Even as a lover who would be well-seen, 
Our manhood faultless and our honor clean.

You held the fire in your hands.

You watched the embers burn, held the memories in your hands, held the silences, their emptiness.

You were braiding the sky with flame. You were listening for the cry.

Time was a hunger swallowing despair, desperation, and always the strange colonies of cloud overhead, time speaking in tongues.

You were driving right into the storm.

You were asleep at the wheel, or aiming your father’s gun, halting thought with your own blood.

You were childless, you were yourself a child

waiting for the muzzle’s flash and still, for the eternity of light, star in the eyes, for the simple, impossible brilliance and afterimage billowing out

as you were thrust into that secret dark where no one escapes, no one remembers,

where you’ll remain, in the end, frightened and alone, 

holding the fire in your hands.

a ghost garden      last year’s      still blooms 
              on the patio             an undying marigold 
lanky rosemary                 rose-scented

geranium       all having survived this 
           unsown year 
                                           and a shadow moves 
among those leaves       fleet in rising sun

I turn to it        and it has gone 
                       pancakes cool on my plate     I’m reading 
          and eating alone 
                                               my husband having taken 
a last October ride      he says           I could bundle up

but I don’t see any reason to 
                                                                        there 
          another pass of        I don’t know what 
door panes squaring its flit

that ghost is the second     possibility I consider 
            is telling      telling              I say to myself 
I could not believe in ghosts       but I don’t see

any reason to 
                                              a bird materializes 
               on the chair outside           wholly in shadow 
there and not there

                                                  I want to have you again 
as ghost even          to keep you with me 
             glimpse or glance 
                                                                  corporeal 
bird                  a perfect explanation 
fine then                                 I want to have you 
as a bird                     I will tell you 
           what I have to say      in bird language 
I think I could learn it 
                                              like eternal vows I’ve made 
if eternity       is a shadow that flickers 
           a bird away               a ghost 
in the corner of my eye

I love the silent hour of night, 
  For blissful dreams may then arise, 
Revealing to my charmèd sight 
  What may not bless my waking eyes.

And then a voice may meet my ear, 
  That death has silenced long ago; 
And hope and rapture may appear 
  Instead of solitude and woe.

Cold in the grave for years has lain 
  The form it was my bliss to see; 
And only dreams can bring again 
  The darling of my heart to me.

Tomorrow’s but a dream, dear Alice, 
In truth, it never appears; 
The past, a tenantless old palace, 
Where hope lies tombed in tears; 
The urn is broken, Alice, 
Whence incense rose above; 
But you may see, if you will, today, 
The magical haunts of love.

My fancy sees a chalice, 
A harp all strung, attuned, 
A famed, enchanted palace, 
Where Cupid oft communed; 
The theme of his dreaming, Alice, 
In waking or sleeping the same, 
A glory that ever dazzles, 
Till it sets the soul a-flame.

Like the burning bush on Horeb, 
Or lit phosphoric seas, 
The dream is metamorphosed, 
And Cupid makes wild pleas, 
For a glance of your dark eyes, Alice, 
And a touch of your lips, my dear, 
For all the bliss of caressing, 
Laughter, and song, and cheer.

’Tis to you and none other, Alice, 
My thought reverts in its flight, 
A little perhaps out of ballas’, 
Perhaps with too much delight; 
So crude, so humble and callous 
That a message it scarce can bear, 
From a heart that wears your image, 
And the passion that fixed it there.

Come thou with me, dear Alice, 
To where there’s building for thee 
A loved, charmed, magical palace, 
Hard by the Mexic sea; 
Where date, and spice and lemon 
Doth blow perpetually, 
By that enchanted palace 
That looks out over the sea.

Tomorrow? That’s cruel, Alice, 
Why speak of a day that is not? 
That spoils the bliss of living, 
Makes mine a miserable lot, 
And love’s enchanted palace 
A wild and desolate place; 
No land of dates and flowers 
Wert blessed without thy grace.

Ears are the eyes on the sides of your head. 
Memory lives here, between these apostrophes. 
As if to predict music, the ear contains a drum.

A musical note calling out for the shape of music. 
For the coin in the slot to unlock the gears. 
For the egg with a horse in it.

Some people are born addicted to sense. 
Some are born infected with silence. 
Poetry is an-ant-ant-anti-antibiotic.

“A horse pill.” 
Yes, there is an actual horse in this pill. 
Imagine it like a fetus pressed to the shell.

The reason there are no unicorns is just that. 
This is the egg tooth. 
And you, what did you pay to enter this world?

^{translated from the Sioux by Frances Densmore}

When I was but a child
I dreamed a wondrous dream.
I went upon a mountain;
There I fell asleep.
I heard a voice say,
“Now will I appear to you.”
A buffalo said this to me, dreaming.
When I was but a child
I dreamed this wondrous dream.

Naked carp swim upstream    and spawn in fresh water,
then fry return     to this 3,260-meter-high saline lake—

we stroll past black sheep      chained by their necks; 
later, our Yi host invites us    to join him at a low table:

boiled mutton, intestines, potatoes,     and red chile 
powder are set in red-swirling,     black lacquer bowls.

Closing my eyes,     I see wind turbines along a ridge, 
transmission lines     that arc from tower to tower 

across green hills;     a herder opens a gate, and black 
yaks slip through—when I walk    to a stream 

that feeds the lake, I follow     a path lined with red
and orange marigolds in pots,     wonder

who surrenders to reach     a higher plane of existence?
At a temple built and rebuilt     since 307 CE, 

I see a persimmon tree     alongside a cypress,
where lovers,     whetted by prayer, leave plaques

with dangling red strings.     Boating on this lake,
we make an oval track     on the surface; and, gazing 

at rapeseed     flowering yellow along the shore, 
we suspend but do not dissipate     the anguish of this world.

I’m afraid I was wrong about the world ending.
The man sitting on the bench—is simply a man on fire.
His fingers; reaching for solitude, something 
brief. The day becomes a sigh of pigeons digging 
For stones. I stand near the station
Too sick to notice the bench—or the man—or fire
Or whether I’ve been spared from grief.
Even the roadkill, coveting concrete, stands 
And walks. Where are those left behind? 
I thought I knew something 
About Armageddon. I apologize, 
But when the world pauses, I will sing naked 
In the heat and grow a forest of sycamores. 
Who can survive an apocalypse 
And live? I made the roadkill a god 
But I’m not allowed to speak for god 
So I wait.