I am out before dawn, marching a small dog through a meager park 
Boulevards angle away, newspapers fly around like blind white birds 
Two days in a row I have not seen the meteors
though the radio news says they are overhead 
Leonid's brimstones are barred by clouds; I cannot read 
the signs in heaven, I cannot see night rendered into fire

And yet I do believe a net of glitter is above me 
You would not think I still knew these things:
I get on the train, I buy the food, I sweep, discuss, 
consider gloves or boots, and in the summer, 
open windows, find beads to string with pearls 
You would not think that I had survived 
anything but the life you see me living now

In the darkness, the dog stops and sniffs the air 
She has been alone, she has known danger, 
and so now she watches for it always 
and I agree, with the conviction of my mistakes. 
But in the second part of my life, slowly, slowly, 
I begin to counsel bravery. Slowly, slowly, 
I begin to feel the planets turning, and I am turning 
toward the crackling shower of their sparks

These are the mysteries I could not approach when I was younger:
the boulevards, the meteors, the deep desires that split the sky
Walking down the paths of the cold park
I remember myself, the one who can wait out anything
So I caution the dog to go silently, to bear with me 
the burden of knowing what spins on and on above our heads

For this is our reward:Come Armageddon, come fire or flood, 
come love, not love, millennia of portents-- 
there is a future in which the dog and I are laughing 
Born into it, the mystery, I know we will be saved

It is 1974 and out the institutional open windows 
of the college dorm, nylon bikinis in floral prints 
are plummeting like the cheap bodies of birds. And then

your mother's large white briefs like a mainsail, like 
a flag of surrender, begin a slow dancing down current, 
cinematic, lithe. All of the faces
are turning up, hushed, like those
holding a hoop to save a child burning. It is the opposite

of being lifted into the sky
the way I imagined my grandfather ascending 
after the long pain of illness: this large pair of underpants 
falling forever on the startled face
of an undergraduate boy.

For Paula Snow

The calamity of seals begins with jaws.
Born in caverns that reverberate
With endless malice of the sea's tongue
Clacking on shingle, they learn to bark back
In fear and sadness and celebration.
The ocean's mouth opens forty feet wide
And closes on a morsel of their rock.

Swayed by the thrust and backfall of the tide,
A dappled grey bull and a brindled cow
Copulate in the green water of a cove.
I watch from a cliff-top, trying not to move.
Sometimes they sink and merge into black shoals;
Then rise for air, his muzzle on her neck,
Their winged feet intertwined as a fishtail.

She opens her fierce mouth like a scarlet flower
Full of white seeds; she holds it open long
At the sunburst in the music of their loving;
And cries a little. But I must remember
How far their feelings are from mine marooned.
If there are tears at this holy ceremony
Theirs are caused by brine and mine by breeze.

When the great bull withdraws his rod, it glows
Like a carnelian candle set in jade.
The cow ripples ashore to feed her calf;
While an old rival, eyeing the deed with hate,
Swims to attack the tired triumphant god.
They rear their heads above the boiling surf,
Their terrible jaws open, jetting blood.

At nightfall they haul out, and mourn the drowned, 
Playing to the sea sadly their last quartet, 
An improvised requiem that ravishes
Reason, while ripping scale up like a net:
Brings pity trembling down the rocky spine
Of headlands, till the bitter ocean's tongue
Swells in their cove, and smothers their sweet song.

(Shroud of Turin)

They must have bled as they sang,
the needles so quick through

the linen, the frayed mesh,
the silvers must have stung them.

Pinpricks they must have stemmed
with their tongues, unembarrassed,

these brides of Christ-
like sewing patches of sunlight

to water--the ghost in the cloth
laid double across their laps.

These are the hips of Christ,
knees raw bone inking the linen;

this, the stain of a coin
that graced His eye, the image

as yet unpatterned, available only--
should they dare to look--

in random angles, stitches.
Terrible gash at a medial rib.

Imprint: sole of His foot,
the other merely heel, curve of

a branch at its one end blackened,
released to ash-their

fingers as furious as sparks
in the medieval dusk

repairing a fire . . . They must have
wept as they bled as they sang.

I'm 28 years old in the flesh
but in a mirror all I can see
is a boy after his first crew cut,
five years old and wondering
what happened to his hair,

disbelieving it would ever
grow back, as the barber
and his grandfather promised,
while he wept, silently,
trembling air through his lips,
pointing at his hair
strewn across a tiled floor.

My grandfather unwrapped
sour balls for both of us, and, 
leaving his Falcon behind, 
walked with me to the woods.

These woods, he said, are yours.
They were mine, but I give them
to you. I am old, and it is only right 
they should now belong to you.

I have lived most of my life
in the absence of that 
gentle voice, and those
woods of mine were clear-cut
years ago, but my hair,
I wear it long in honor of him.

A teacher at the chalkboard turns
and imagines pushing desks
together, lowering her body
onto the one whose question
about character and conflict
still lingers in his mouth.

Behind a curtain of textbook and chalk,
she shudders thick and shaded 
inside Jekyll's bones, spine twisting in the hands
of what she thought she'd turned to ash
by the heat of her good intentions.

She unbuttons the hugeness of his coat,
hears her voice gone dwarfish and husky,
feels Jekyll's nausea in her mouth,
Hyde's lust grinding in her molars
while stage crews haul away bridges,
drag in back alleys
and the curtain begins to rise.

It's moments like this,
the director gone for coffee,
stage crew caught with their arms full,
when we know what rises in us unbidden
is woven to us,
more intimate than a lover.

Is dead serious about this one, having rehearsed it for two weeks
They bring it right into the Old Fellows Meeting Hall.
Riding the backs of the Trojan Women, 
In Euripides' great wake they are swept up, 

But the women of the chorus, in black stockings and kerchiefs,
Stand up bravely to it, shawled arms thrash
In a foam of hysterical voices shrieking,
Seaweed on the wet flanks of a whale,

For each town has its Cassandra who is a little crazy,
Wed to some mystery or other and therefore painfully sensitive,
Wiser than anyone but no one listens to her, these days the terror
Reaches its red claws into back ward and living room alike,

For each town has its Andromache who is too young,
With snub nose and children just out of school
Even she cannot escape it, from the bombed city she is led out
Weeping among the ambulances,

And each community has its tart, its magical false Helen
Or at least someone who looks like her, in all the makeup she can muster,
The gorgeous mask of whatever quick-witted lie will keep her alive
At least a little longer, on the crest of the bloody wave,

That dolorous mountain of wooden ships and water
In whose memory the women bring us this huge gift horse,
This raging animal of a play no one dares to look in the eye
For fear of what's hidden there:

Small ragdoll figures toppling over and over
From every skyscraper and battlement hurtling
Men and women both, mere gristle in the teeth of fate.
Out over the sea of the audience our numb faces

Are stunned as Andromache's, locked up there on the platform
Inside Euripides' machine the women sway and struggle
One foot at a time, up the surging ladder
Of grief piled on grief, strophe on antistrophe,

In every century the same, the master tightens the screws,
Heightens the gloss of each bitter scene
And strikes every key, each word rings out
Over our terrified heads like a brass trumpet,

For this gift is an accordion, the biggest and mightiest of all,
As the glittering lacquered box heaves in and out,
Sigh upon sigh, at the topmost pitch a child
Falls through midnight in his frantically pink skin. 

As the anguished queen protests, the citizens in the chorus wail
Louder and louder, the warriors depart
Without a glance backwards, these captains of the world's death
Enslaved as they are enslavers, in a rain of willess atoms

Anonymity takes over utterly: as the flaming city falls
On this bare beach, in the drab pinewood hall
The Reading Club packs up to go; scripts, coffee cups, black stockings
Husbands and wives pile into the waiting cars

Just as we expect, life picks up and goes on
But not art: crouched back there like a stalled stallion
Stuffed in its gorgeous music box is the one gift
That will not disappear but waits, but bides its time and waits

For the next time we open it, that magical false structure
Inside whose artifice is the lesson, buried alive,
Of the grim machinations of the beautiful that always lead us
To these eternally real lamentations, real sufferings, real cries.

You're sitting outside the French doors.     It's night and I'm startled 
to see you sitting there on a stone bench. I see your profile in the dark. 
When you want to have friends over, but don't want to spend all 
day getting ready, this simple but elegant dinner is perfect. 
Your face is sad; you are like a stone statue outside my lighted house. 
I think the last place we had our furniture was at the house where 
you lived as a companion for an elderly woman.    We put our 
things in the garage.    We lived among the woman's objects. 
I keep wondering if our furniture is still there.    You left it 
there. 

Chill the champagne and fix dessert first.     We came back to 
the house to see if we'd forgotten anything.     We left the piano 
and my dollhouse that time.    I'm coming out of a twenty-first-
century apartment.    There are many apartments like this--low, near 
the ground, level, with sloping roofs, lanterns set into the stairs. 

I woke up screaming for sleeping pills when I was sleeping on a 
cot in our empty kitchen. I was twelve that summer, the stairwells 
were filling with huge moths.     I could hear them flying 
through the stairwell. 

While cooking liquid for shrimp is reducing, start grilling the veg-
etables.         The landlady came to talk to you about the 
back rent. I stayed in the bedroom like you told me to. You and 
she had coffee and talked quietly.         The sheriff came a 
month later.     The next time, there were fists pounding on the 
heavy door for a while, and they were going to break it down. 
We had our things put in storage in the night and stayed at a 
neighbor's. 

They were very gentle women with large, sad eyes and all starving. 
They had long, bony arms. They shared their breakfast with us. 
Reheat shrimp and mushrooms in sauce just before pasta is done. 

The sky is empty and colorless. There are lawns, but few trees or shrubs. 
Lanterns set near the ground along drives and sidewalks are the only 
beautiful things.    We stayed for a while at a relative's house. 
They lived in an arboretum. The bay, exotic birds, and trees 
surrounded us. I slept on an army cot. Everyone thought I would 
like sharing my cousin's room, the lace curtains, frilly girl's 
bedding, shells, earrings, closet full of girl's clothing, dolls, porce-
lain animals, her white furniture with gold trim "just like" my 
furniture.     When I was in the room by myself, I could almost 
pretend it was my own room, but when my cousin was there, it 
became hers again. I spent hours riding my bike along the trails 
during the warm fall, the trees making a shelter above me with 
their interwoven boughs. 

To make dessert, peel four (preferably seedless) oranges, 
removing as much of the white pith as possible. Slice oranges into 
"wheels," put them in a shallow serving bowl, and toss with a few 
tablespoons of Grand Marnier and a teaspoon or so of sugar, if 
needed. They're great accompanied by really decadent chocolate 
truffles. 

We had our things again in our new apartment.    But the 
eviction notices and bill collectors began coming again. The new 
place we moved to was rundown, and the neighbors kept a wild 
dog in a cage near their property line to guard it. They never let 
the dog out. We went over to introduce ourselves when they were 
having a yard sale. The mother kept her children near her and 
had a tight, very polite smile.     My room was lavender. 

Sometimes the heat shut off in the middle of the night, and my 
mother would go outside in the cold in her nightgown to go down
to the basement to switch the furnace back on.     And my 
mother heated water on the stove so that I could wash my hair. 
There were ants in the kitchen cupboards, and they poured out of 
a box of cereal when I was pouring out a bowl for breakfast. I 
threw it on the floor and ran to school. 

Sauté mushrooms in a medium saucepan in hot olive oil over 
medium-high heat. Cook just long enough to release mushroom 
juices and let them evaporate.     I want to stay in the apartment 
that's already furnished with white swiss-dotted sheer curtains, afghans, 
handmade quilts, a brown couch, and bay windows.    I don't want to 
leave these things. As I live there, I become attached to the apartment, 
its rooms.     The houses along my walk to the bank remind me of the 
neighborhood where I grew up--low, small ranch houses.    I realize 
they had looked much bigger when I was a child. Now, they seem very 
small, like dollhouses, and the neighborhood is empty.    All the girls 
are in their nightgowns    wandering through the woods with candles. 

The roommate who is incredulous I haven't contributed an equal 
number of appliances, cookware, and furniture to the apartment. I 
want to tell her these were all taken from me and give her an inven-
tory of what I used to have.    I am floating past neat, suburban 
houses, small ones with little flowers planted out front. One of these is 
our old house.    The landscape opens up    to fields, green fields. 

Remember the small kerosene lamp made of white porcelain with roses 
on it, the blue china, painted with people            gathering hay 
at harvest time.

Didn’t you like the way the ants help
the peony globes open by eating the glue off?
Weren’t you cheered to see the ironworkers
sitting on an I-beam dangling from a cable,
in a row, like starlings, eating lunch, maybe
baloney on white with fluorescent mustard?
Wasn’t it a revelation to waggle
from the estuary all the way up the river,
the kill, the pirle, the run, the rent, the beck,
the sike barely trickling, to the shock of a spring?
Didn’t you almost shiver, hearing book lice
clicking their sexual dissonance inside an old
Webster’s New International, perhaps having just
eaten out of it izle, xyster, and thalassacon?
What did you imagine lies in wait anyway
at the end of a world whose sub-substance
is glaim, gleet, birdlime, slime, mucus, muck?
Forget about becoming emaciated. Think of the wren
and how little flesh is needed to make a song.
Didn’t it seem somehow familiar when the nymph
split open and the mayfly struggled free
and flew and perched and then its own back
broke open and the imago, the true adult,
somersaulted out and took flight, seeking
the swarm, mouth-parts vestigial,
alimentary canal come to a stop,
a day or hour left to find the desired one?
Or when Casanova took up the platter
of linguine in squid’s ink and slid the stuff
out the window, telling his startled companion,
“The perfected lover does not eat.”
As a child, didn’t you find it calming to imagine
pinworms as some kind of tiny batons
giving cadence to the squeezes and releases
around the downward march of debris?
Didn’t you glimpse in the monarchs
what seemed your own inner blazonry
flapping and gliding, in desire, in the middle air?
Weren’t you reassured to think these flimsy
hinged beings, and then their offspring,
and then their offspring’s offspring, could
navigate, working in shifts, all the way to Mexico,
to the exact plot, perhaps the very tree,
by tracing the flair of the bodies of ancestors
who fell in this same migration a year ago?
Doesn’t it outdo the pleasures of the brilliant concert
to wake in the night and find ourselves
holding hands in our sleep?

In any case, by the time I realized I hadn’t spoken to my father 
           for many, many years, I was distracted. It was snowing

and I was stuck on page 157 of a biography of Casanova 
           who may have slept with multitudes, but lost 

a fortune investing in a silk factory. I dreamed 
           about that story. I maintained my silence

in my cold room there, in Iowa, where industries 
           disappear the fingers and feet of its workers, a cohort

among which my dad might have been counted 
           had his travels led him farther north. Is there hazard pay

in the feeding of America? I have traveled so far from God,  
           my dad might have quoted if he kept diaries.

But who was I kidding? It was not the season of fathers.  
           It was the season of asylum. My uncle told me so. 

While I sat there, in the gauzy twilight of snowy Iowa,  
           he traveled to the edge of Arizona

where he walked himself, hands in pockets, to border patrol. 
           When I was a child, he was also a child. 

He held me down, poured wax on my neck  
           from hot devotional candles. I read in my room 

when Juan Diego bailed on his meeting with the ghost 
           of Mary, she chided him for worrying

about his terminal uncle. Am I not here, she asked, 
           I, who is your sanctuary? I dreamed about that story 

when the snow first began falling in Iowa. I was warmed  
           by the wax that tore like an arrow through my skin.

With Pantheist energy of will

The little craftsman of the Coral Sea

Strenuous in the blue abyss,

Up-builds his marvellous gallery

    And long arcade,

Erections freaked with many a fringe

    Of marble garlandry,

Evincing what a worm can do.p>

Laborious in a shallower wave,

    Advanced in kindred art,

A prouder agent proved Pan’s might

When Venice rose in reefs of palaces.

I

Like a gondola of green scented fruits	 
Drifting along the dank canals of Venice,	 
You, O exquisite one,	 
Have entered into my desolate city.	 
  
II

The blue smoke leaps	         
Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing.	 
So my love leaps forth toward you,	 
Vanishes and is renewed.	 
  
III

A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky	 
When the sunset is faint vermilion	  
In the mist among the tree-boughs	 
Art thou to me, my beloved.	 
  
IV

A young beech tree on the edge of the forest	 
Stands still in the evening,	 
Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air	  
And seems to fear the stars—	 
So are you still and so tremble.	 
  
V

The red deer are high on the mountain,	 
They are beyond the last pine trees.	 
And my desires have run with them.	  
  
VI

The flower which the wind has shaken	 
Is soon filled again with rain;	 
So does my heart fill slowly with tears,	 
O Foam-Driver, Wind-of-the-Vineyards,	 
Until you return.