Gaza has become a funeral home, 
but there are no seats, 
no mourners, no bodies. 
In the caskets are nothing but 
what remained of the dead’s clothes, 
and on the crumbling walls are clocks 
that have not moved for fourteen months.

Avoid cramps by keeping your grip parallel to the hip. 20 gauge steel, but surprisingly light. It’s called the Atlas XL. You may hear Atlas and conjure a collection of maps and charts with his picture as the frontispiece. He is the sea. He is a mountain whose cave shelters the Witch. He fathers nymphs and protects trees. He carries celestial cities on the nape of his neck. Think of the casket as his open palm, cradling your loved one like a precious metal. Consider the sacrifice he makes by using his palm this way. The golden apples are gone; his shoulders heavy; the heavens unheld drop.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
    I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

         Gaily bedight,
         A gallant knight,
     In sunshine and in shadow,
         Had journeyed long,
         Singing a song,
     In search of Eldorado.

         But he grew old—
         This knight so bold—
     And o’er his heart a shadow
         Fell, as he found
         No spot of ground
     That looked like Eldorado.

         And, as his strength
         Failed him at length,
     He met a pilgrim shadow—
         ‘Shadow,’ said he,
         ‘Where can it be—
     This land of Eldorado?’ 

         ‘Over the Mountains
         Of the Moon,
     Down the Valley of the Shadow,
         Ride, boldly ride,’ 
         The shade replied,—
     ‘If you seek for Eldorado!’ 

It’s dusk on a Tuesday in June. A hot wind

       bears down and east. In my room, a stranger’s

hairclip lies like a gilded insect beside the sink.

       Hours later, it’s still dusk; it will be dusk all night.

Last month, I cut the masking tape from a box my mother left

       my sister and me. On the lid, she wrote, Life is hard, not

unbeatable. If I can do it, darlings, so can you. 2 am. A rosy dark

       dusting the window, the heat a ladder into sleep.

I. Les Silhouettes.

            The sea is flecked with bars of grey
            The dull dead wind is out of tune,
            And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.

            Etched clear upon the pallid sand
            The black boat lies: a sailor boy
            Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.

            And overheard the curlews cry,
            Where through the dusky upland grass
            The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky.

II. La Fuite De La Lune.

            To outer senses there is peace,
            A dreamy peace on either hand,
            Deep silence in the shadowy land,
Deep silence where the shadows cease.

            Save for a cry that echoes shrill
            From some lone bird disconsolate;
            A corncrake calling to its mate;
The answer from the misty hill.

            An suddenly the moon withdraws
            Her sickle from the lightening skies,
            And to her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate.
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

On returning to the front after leave

Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),
Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue
Look the leftovers of mankind that rest,
Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you.
War has its horrors, but has this of good—
That its sure processes sort out and bind
Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood
And leave the shams and imbeciles behind.
Now turn we joyful to the great attacks,
Not only that we face in a fair field
Our valiant foe and all his deadly tools,
But also that we turn disdainful backs
On that poor world we scorn yet die to shield—
That world of cowards, hypocrites, and fools.

and you used to be The Richard Bey Show 
and my sister’s spaghetti. Under a friar plum tree, 
a simplified reading of “The Argonautica.”
You kept me full and entertained. I was that kind 
of round child. Gorging on what was left over. 
I didn’t want a real burden, my own ship or story. 
I didn’t want to go on ahead. I didn’t want to 
have to reverse into you. Into your apparatus. 
I never wanted nostalgia. We used to know each other,
remember? Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid. 
Not. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry.
Why did we have to pry open our patch of dirt? 
Why couldn’t you always be acid wash
or those I CAN’T DRIVE 55 posters at the swap meet 
or sunglasses. I never wanted to lay questions around 
you. What if he takes another this year? What if 
he’s difficult to talk my way out of? What if he eats me 
only half-alive? What if all he is in his beach bum
orange is ghosts clothespinned to the laundry line?

Out of the bosom of the Air,
    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
      Silent, and soft, and slow
      Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
      The troubled sky reveals
      The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
      Now whispered and revealed
      To wood and field.

how it comes from the sky because I am dry   because

I am thirsty    reaching down for roots I can feel

& up for dream & because I need the wet the release

of flood    but not too much   that would have been the daily

April poem then I snuck into a little place for pasta   talked

myself into believing I deserved a treat   thinking I was

anonymous   & there was Meena’s husband David with friends

eating & laughing   we greeted awkwardly   I stayed at my

corner table   red wine & rigatoni   all I could think about was

Meena’s thick shiny nearly black hair    how I didn’t manage

to visit her that last year of illness although I said I would

she sent me poem & photo    told about losing her hair

I said it looks beautiful short   that I was thinking of cutting

mine    don’t do it she said    don’t cut your hair then she 

was gone    her photo in my office so anyone who enters 

will know   her poems moving around like waves    tulip 

stems   high pitched elegant voice articulating 

how the world begins & ends     how verse continues 
 

Praise the Ocean for teaching me that home is not location as much as it is
belonging where I am wanted 

Praise the Ocean for always wanting me 
for washing my body in and naming it child 

Praise the way the water bites at my ankles 
but never breaks the skin 

Praise the skin on my ankle that had to break for the gun for the tatau drawn by
the gun’s mouth in the hands 

of a tufuga during my first tatau appointment 
on island when I was 17 years old 

Praise his cigarette break  
so I could complete my sobbing in peace. 

Praise the umu, the underground oven of hot rocks and fire cooking the sweet coconut milk in the center of salted leaves for palusami 

for the thick talo and soft fattiness of octopus tentacles 
Praise the crinkled crack of metal on the edge of every can of tuna 

greasy from oiled chunks of fish, peppered over a bowl of hot rice Praise the ground as dining room table 

as only place to eat 
at eating at the feet of our elders as the talking chief blessed us in prayer 

Praise the mother mosquito and her obsession with the back of my legs Praise the stench of repellant that stuck to my skin like boobie trap 

like tourist trick 
like 2nd generation 

like “not quite from here” 
Praise the heavenly scorch of heat behind my ears 

Praise the lowered heads and crossed legs atop each woven fala mat Praise the village of women who wove them 

the mulberry bark that was beaten enough to braid 
Praise the broken flip flops running alongside flattened frogs

on the road headed towards the church house
Praise the choir of children 

who sing with one tongue. 
Praise the way we lay our dead to rest in front of each house 

how there is no need for cemeteries 
if our kin never really die 

Praise the way they return home to us 
Praise home 

Praise us.

As I walked out one evening,
   Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
   Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
   I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
   ‘Love has no ending.

‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
   Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
   And the salmon sing in the street,

‘I’ll love you till the ocean
   Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
   Like geese about the sky.

‘The years shall run like rabbits,
   For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
   And the first love of the world.’

But all the clocks in the city
   Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
   You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
   Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
   And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry
   Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
   To-morrow or to-day.

‘Into many a green valley
   Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
   And the diver’s brilliant bow.

‘O plunge your hands in water,
   Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
   And wonder what you’ve missed.

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
   The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
   A lane to the land of the dead.

‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
   And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
   And Jill goes down on her back.

‘O look, look in the mirror,
   O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
   Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window
   As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
   With your crooked heart.’

It was late, late in the evening,
   The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
   And the deep river ran on.

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.

There is this ringing hum  this
bullet-borne language  ringing
shell-fall and static this  late-night
ringing of threadwork and carpet  ringing
hiss and steam  this wing-beat
of rotors and tanks  broken
bodies ringing in steel  humming these
voices of dust  these years ringing
rifles in Babylon  rifles in Sumer
ringing these children their gravestones
and candy  their limbs gone missing  their
static-borne television  their ringing
this eardrum  this rifled symphonic  this
ringing of midnight in gunpowder and oil this
brake pad gone useless  this muzzle-flash singing  this
threading of bullets in muscle and bone  this ringing
hum  this ringing hum  this
ringing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

^{after Etel Adnan}

And there, 
between clean walls
you assume 
the position,
angled toward 
the red squares 
roiling
on her canvases.

Into the oils 
of a new tense
she herself
days before 
had dissolved.

There, impasto:
her mountain.

Trimmed down 
to the first 
seeing.

Tamalpais 
at every pitch,
pistachio 
patches scraping
against cobalt.
Edges opaque
until they refused.

Mountainous,
she, too—
which is to say 
surfacing,
color latching 
to the seasons 
where meaning
rushes.

Of this transition
the living are given 
no access.                                                                

You, turning 
away from 
the dry wall,
where nothing
tears through.

A red square
appears in your days
yet you know
not yet where.

    She looked over his shoulder
       For vines and olive trees,
    Marble well-governed cities
       And ships upon untamed seas,
    But there on the shining metal
       His hands had put instead
    An artificial wilderness
       And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
   No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
   Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
   An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Out of the air a voice without a face
   Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
   No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
   Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.

    She looked over his shoulder
       For ritual pieties,
    White flower-garlanded heifers,
       Libation and sacrifice,
    But there on the shining metal
       Where the altar should have been,
    She saw by his flickering forge-light
       Quite another scene.

Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
   Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
   A crowd of ordinary decent folk
   Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.

The mass and majesty of this world, all
   That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
   And could not hope for help and no help came:
   What their foes liked to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.

    She looked over his shoulder
       For athletes at their games,
    Men and women in a dance
       Moving their sweet limbs
    Quick, quick, to music,
       But there on the shining shield
    His hands had set no dancing-floor
       But a weed-choked field.

A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
   Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
   That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
   Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.

    The thin-lipped armorer,
       Hephaestos, hobbled away,
    Thetis of the shining breasts
       Cried out in dismay
    At what the god had wrought
       To please her son, the strong
    Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
       Who would not live long.

            on Gustav Klimt’s painting, 1907-1908

Do you really think if you bend

me, I will love you? You

crack my chin up, your hands

brown pigeons scheming reunion

at my cheek and temple, your jaw

cragged at the end of your thick neck

of longing. I claw onto you

as the only tree here, your

swing. I’m mad for gravity though

I’m bound, diagonally, to

you. Let me. Push from your trunk towards

the edge and my freedom. Leave me

to wither while moss weeps

in the corners, our halo liquid

as yolk, waving from our bodies’ heat,

our divinity melting. My dress

blossoms loudly. You are still

wrestling me closer. If only I could

release to you my mouth just this

once and you would leave me,

but the shadows of your robe are

so haphazard. I know you will try

to smother me again. The poppies scratch. My feet

reach beyond spring.