She is a wood warbler

hatched

            into madness.          She

emerged

from milky shell   earthen brown blotches

not Rorschach   not robin   but warbler.

Open-mouthed                   swallow of hard-

chipped notes, calls            smothered

inside 

            her smoke-gray chamber of throat.

Dis/appearing between branches          

muted yellow-green

            tail feathers and body dainty   clawed toes

white lines half-circle            her eyes

sense but can’t see

at the center of night     movements        

misfire

misreads the body

                                                responds on its own.

Spring in Hell and everything’s blooming.

I dreamt the worst was over but it wasn’t.

Suppose my punishment was fields of lilies sharper than razors, cutting up fields of lies.

Suppose my punishment was purity, mined and blanched.

They shunned me only because I knew I was stunning.

Then the white plague came, and their pleas were like a river.

Summer was orgiastic healing, snails snaking around wrists.

In heat, garbage festooned the sidewalks.

Old men leered at bodies they couldn’t touch

until they did. I shouldn’t have laughed but I laughed

at their flesh dozing into their spines, their bones crunching like snow.

Once I was swollen and snowblind with grief, left for dead

at the castle door. Then I robbed the castle and kissed my captor,

my sadness, learned she was not a villain. To wake up in this verdant field,

to watch the lilies flay the lambs. To enter paradise,

a woman drinks a vial of amnesia. Found in only the palest

flowers, the ones that smell like rotten meat. To summon the stinky

flower and access its truest aroma, you have to let its stigma show.

You have to let the pollen sting your eyes until you close them.

The first deer had large teeth and no horns and

were not afraid.

The first deer did not have enough fear

for the men who needed them

to survive.

A woman decided to let the men eat

a grandmother decided her deer shall have horns

and be afraid

someone’s mother decided the men shall eat

and shall be feared.

*

A man thought wolves should be used

to cull the herd.

And we who had been catching water

dripping through stone

in the homes we dug

out of the earth

we licked our long teeth clean

            and set to work.

In a world of loss

     gratitude is what 

          I demand for keeping 

     precious catch

within my reach.

     No one despises 

          the shepherd for

     collecting his flock. 

No one accuses 

     the watchman of 

          making a captive 

     of his charge.

I’m like a holster, 

     or sheath, all function 

          and no fury. Don’t 

     you worry as I 

swallow you whole. Those 

     ulcers in my gut 

          are only windows,

     the stoma punched 

in my throat is just 

     a keyhole. Don’t be shy.

          Hand me the rattle 

     of your aching heart

 and I’ll cradle you, 

     bird with broken wing. 

          Let me love you. I

     will hold your brittle 

bones together. I’ll 

     unclasp your beak

         so you can sing.

     It’s a world of always 

leaving but here

     you can always stay.

You are never mentioned on Ararat

or elsewhere, but I know a woman’s hand

in salvation when I see it. Lately,

I’m torn between despair and ignorance.

I’m not a vegetarian, shop plastic,

use an air conditioner. Is this what happens

before it all goes fluvial? Do the selfish

grow self-conscious by the withering

begonias? Lately, I worry every black dress

will have to be worn to a funeral.

New York a bouillon, eroded filigree.

Anything but illness, I beg the plagues,

but shiny crows or nuclear rain.

Not a drop in London May through June.

I bask in the wilt by golden hour light.

Lately, only lately, it is late. Tucking

our families into the safeties of the past.

My children, will they exist by the time

it’s irreversible? Will they live

astonished at the thought of ice

not pulled from the mouth of a machine?

Which parent will be the one to break

the myth; the Arctic wasn’t Sisyphus’s

snowy hill. Noah’s wife, I am wringing

my hands not knowing how to know

and move forward. Was it you

who gathered flowers once the earth

had dried? How did you explain the light

to all the animals?

We drank coffee and got ready,

listened to 93.3 during our commute

to take our mind off how

every day we die on tv. Every day

down the block, kids in surgical masks

spraypaint Magneto was Right on street signs

and new storefronts waiting to redeem

spa resort passes and avocado toast dreams

until they, too, are forced out of business.

Or not. People can surprise you

like beating cancer or criminal charges,

the 2016 election, the high cost

of middle shelf liquor with a decent view.

If you want to succeed, let them see you

coming, our mothers once said before asking

if we wanted the switch or the belt.

But a whooping beats sitting

at the rooftop bar looking over the steepled skyline

and feeling the pang of worlds we’d rather be,

with two empty seats right beside us

that stay empty for the next two hours

surrounded by people drinking & eating

standing up—the wind threatening

to blow their hats off their sunburned heads.

Somewhere right now

there are two people looking for those seats.

We keep hoping they’ll find them—

find us. Let’s have another drink,

watch the muted news above

a row of decent bourbon,

  

wait to hear, to see

if they make it to us or turn up on tv.

Every night I sleep on alternate

sides of the bed, as if to duplicate
sleeping with you. If

I'm fast enough, I'm the warmth
of my own body beside me, reach

out and touch myself. Breach
the blue of my bones, breathe in my own ear.

You left me. Lying here,
I left you to be with me.

Someone asks if your body
was worth trading for mine.

My sin was always pride.
Did you want a man that sleeps

with himself to keep
the bed warm? I need you like the earth

needed the flood after dearth

It’s love you left, we’ll say
when you never come back
for bells for the dead, for the grave
stone heads: the only ones
that don’t keep count. Don’t
we know it’s love that keeps you
away, that marks every mile
devotion? You would’ve went
to the end with each one,
made Orpheus turn back.
Would’ve fell / would’ve leapt /
would’ve left. The living is easy
/ the leaving is easy / living
with ghosts, it was easy
to give up your home
to your father, struck
with the same grief
of living, demanding
what are you gonna do
with my mama’s house?
Shorn grass & damp dirt:
they’ll put me in the middle.
I kick the ground like tires,
feeling dumb without flowers /
tokens / grief / anything
in my hands. You’ll bring me
back home, won’t you? Stamp
it down, as if the flat earth
could answer sometimes this,
too, is love. You left. 

Still dark, my baby girl leaps out
the window to greet the rising sun.
I stand below ready to catch her,
but every time she takes off
without fail, her laughter calling
to the orioles, calling
to my shame that had I the choice,
I would have never taught her to fly.

Somewhere there is a man with a gun
who will take pleasure in seeing her
skin against the pure blue sky—
and shooting her down.
My own mother did not flinch
when I first raised my arms
and lifted my feet off the ground,
above her head.
She only said you better hope
bulletproof skin comes with that
gift. Years later I found out it did.

“Few words are best.”

        Not here. Discretion has been abandoned in this part

        of the world too lately

        For it to be admired. Disgust for it is like the

Equinox—all things in

One. Disgust is

        No psychologist and has not opportunity to be a hypocrite.

        It says to the saw-toothed bayonet and to the cue

Of blood behind the sub-

Marine—to the

        Poisoned comb, to the Kaiser of Germany and to the

        intolerant gateman at the exit from the eastbound ex-

        press: “I hate

You less than you must hate

Yourselves: You have

        Accoutred me. ‘Without enemies one’s courage flags.’

        Your error has been timed

        To aid me, I am in debt to you for you have primed 

Me against subterfuge.”

You who are happy in a thousand homes,

Or overworked therein, to a dumb peace;

Whose souls are wholly centered in the life

Of that small group you personally love–

Who told you that you need not know or care

About the sin and sorrow of the world?

Do you believe the sorrow of the world

Does not concern you in your little homes?

That you are licensed to avoid the care

And toil for human progress, human peace,

And the enlargement of our power of love

Until it covers every field of life?

The one first duty of all human life

Is to promote the progress of the world

In righteousness, in wisdom, truth and love;

And you ignore it, hidden in your homes,

Content to keep them in uncertain peace,

Content to leave all else without your care.

Yet you are mothers! And a mother's care

Is the first step towards friendly human life.

Life where all nations in untroubled peace

Unite to raise the standard of the world

And make the happiness we seek in homes

Spread everywhere in strong and fruitful love.

You are content to keep that mighty love

In its first steps forever; the crude care

Of animals for mate and young and homes,

Instead of poring it abroad in life,

Its mighty current feeding all the world

Till every human child shall grow in peace.

You cannot keep your small domestic peace,

Your little pool of undeveloped love,

While the neglected, starved, unmothered world

Struggles and fights for lack of mother's care,

And its tempestuous, bitter, broken life

Beats in upon you in your selfish homes.

We all may have our homes in joy and peace

When woman's life, in its rich power of love

Is joined with man's to care for all the world!