Twenty-five summers ago
I wrote a poem about the summer ending,
the shadows lengthening, and the light
gone soft and elegiac
like the end of a love song.
It joined roughly a million poems
written that summer alone
on the same subject, but in Spanish
or Japanese, or Swahili,
always the same thing, same shadows
lengthening, same soft light,
and I ended my poem, twenty five years ago,
by saying that the back of my hand
had begun to look like a dead leaf
or the back of someone else’s hand.
And this is just a shout out to say
to that version of me, a quarter
century ago, that the hand in question
looks even more like a dead leaf, even more 
like the back of someone else’s hand,
but—and this is crucial, the importance
of this next observation cannot
be overstated—the strange old hand
is still here, still enduring, still writing itself
into itself.

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

that’s it
that I walked into the cafe
and in the noise and crowd
we met

and that I saw
what it was I’d been
in what it was
I saw

that in our skin
in the decade of our skin
is what began
before we knew

and that time before
with this time now
is nothing
waiting to start again

I give you my rain, 

the verbs and clatter from which there is no returning. 

I give you my siren, my hymns, my psalms. 

I give you maps, the crevice from which my cities have fallen. 

I give you the small country of my laughter. 

I give you lights parsing through lives, the fleeting 

moth of days, my hours of beseeching. 

I give you my private animals. 

I give you the night hours from which I wake a city of salt.

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

Being asked to move into time 
To places wishes and daydreams 
Into rivets and seams
Being asked to move back into categorical understandings of regrets
In order to fight against disintegration 
Carrying a placeholder for liminal spectrums
Reading somersaults into lecture
Move me, unmove me
place me unto y’all’s metaphoric understanding 
of the dreams which have yet been realized
Wish unto me, unfurl around, open
Gasp gasp gasp 
Cry out, there are ways of understanding 
that leave indelible marks onto membrane surfaces

We should all be so lucky to exist 
To not function
The eyes, cease to work
The throat struggles to open
The ears seek love remarks
The skin wrinkles 
to make space 
for the grandchildren we wish into the future
Au Revoir, my love: 
you have my best 
and my sword to cut through the meat of life. 
Hopefully, you have a better grip than me.
Hello long love, 
I seek you out 
amongst the fleshy cavernous walls where memory lies.

When you appeared it was as if
magnets cleared the air.
I had never seen that smile before
or your hair, flying silver. Someone
waving goodbye, she was silver, too.
Of course you didn’t see me.
I called softly so you could choose
not to answer—then called again.
You turned in the light, your eyes
seeking your name.

I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

                The world is a beautiful place 
                                                           to be born into 
if you don’t mind happiness 
                                             not always being 
                                                                        so very much fun 
       if you don’t mind a touch of hell
                                                       now and then
                just when everything is fine
                                                             because even in heaven
                                they don’t sing 
                                                        all the time

             The world is a beautiful place
                                                           to be born into
       if you don’t mind some people dying
                                                                  all the time
                        or maybe only starving
                                                           some of the time
                 which isn’t half so bad
                                                      if it isn’t you

      Oh the world is a beautiful place
                                                          to be born into
               if you don’t much mind
                                                   a few dead minds
                    in the higher places
                                                    or a bomb or two
                            now and then
                                                  in your upturned faces
         or such other improprieties
                                                    as our Name Brand society
                                  is prey to
                                              with its men of distinction
             and its men of extinction
                                                   and its priests
                         and other patrolmen
                                                         and its various segregations
         and congressional investigations
                                                             and other constipations
                        that our fool flesh
                                                     is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
                                                           for a lot of such things as
         making the fun scene
                                                and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
                                         and singing low songs of having 
                                                                                      inspirations
and walking around 
                                looking at everything
                                                                  and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
                              and even thinking 
                                                         and kissing people and
     making babies and wearing pants
                                                         and waving hats and
                                     dancing
                                                and going swimming in rivers
                              on picnics
                                       in the middle of the summer
and just generally
                            ‘living it up’

Yes
   but then right in the middle of it
                                                    comes the smiling
                                                                                 mortician

                                           

Hear me: Sometimes thunder is just thunder.
The dog barking is only a dog. Leaves fall
from the trees because the days are getting shorter,
by which I mean, not the days we have left,
but the actual length of time, given the tilt of earth
and distance from the sun. My nephew used to see
a therapist who mentioned that, at play,
he sank a toy ship and tried to save the captain.
Not,  he said, that we want to read anything into that.
Who can read the world? It’s paragraphs
of cloud, and alphabets of dust. Just now
a night bird outside my window made a single
plaintive cry that wafted up between the trees.
Not, I’m sure, that it was meant for me.

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.