once the magnolia has blossomed

     *

     Once the magnolia blossoms,
the descending shadow of the petals
stains the street

     with the brown footprint leaving,
where it has stepped in itself,

     a track
walked in its own being flesh
gone as to excrement —

     spring, in tomorrow’s rain, comes
a hose-down of the scene as
of an annual
                      murder,

the fallen   petal
     of a sparrow

no one had kept an eye on except
the peregrine
     from the Methodist church tower.

     A hose-down    as hope  
this has to do with something

about the plant cycle
     of sublime season done          not sacrifice

to some stoned possession   for blood
spent on the street,

     and so much lost    you’d think
beauty had left a lesson
     more   than more is there          to ask for.

On the Sparrow: No Blame

 When I worked in the steel mill
the ceiling crane dropped a bolt
at my feet          the way the cat
leaves his catch on the doorstep
for me        to step over it
a bolt thick as a sparrow:
the gift of it:              it didn't
easy as eggshell crack my skull.

Walking underneath the el's
same bridge superstructure
when i first arrived
in Chicago    this is what
I thought of          a falling bolt,
having to give up my cats
and not be mad if the whole 
thing falls off track aimed at me.

Buildings straight up from the street
tall slough off their "Falling Ice,"
stand-up sidewalk signs like it's nothing.
Buildings the sparrow's slam into,
fall from—    watched from the window desks—
mistaking light for the sky, land up here.
The cats probably have been
put to sleep by age by now. No blame.

Nolan,

                     The apparition of these faces in the crowd...)



riding the bullet train
the view passes by so fast
it is either a blur they say

or —like night lightning
strobes the raindrops
to a stop in midair

in that soundless moment—
maybe from the train you can glimpse
waiting there

one of those famous petals stopped still
in midair holding its wave to you
in place.        write us

and tell us if
this is so.

Whose Sleeves: American Tagasode

your shape is in the robe    worn or not
a roominess of you folds into its cloth

a sachet in the drawer from which the air
of the place was taken   fixed of    you’re here

the smell has temperature and space
the wider warmth that buttered popcorn tastes

and not you    it folds into a time’s clot
a sachet in a drawer   personage of its own still you

                                 *

I have to wear a bus to Rikers Island with
opaque tears up to my neck to get in       to see you

in your two inch thick glass robe I have to imagine
you naked under   to place my hand saying

I miss you against you where I can’t touch and love
has to break across insulating space       still warm

I have to stand my day in the folding up put away
given you as time   with you. I smell I need you on my clothes

                                 *

I smell gunfire folded in      to every turn
the city’s track laps into its hands on race

then files away not guilty    I smell the drawers
of the records they keep   folded away    from stands taken

away  distance doesn’t dissipate
the space between the bullet holes in you in me   folded

you are the map I have to sleep with in my pocket to be sure
I know how to get out of here

                                 *

your shape is in the robe    the sharp creases
of its fold when you wore it   blocked into

the counterpoint around you   that even
folded stood you out to me   that they couldn’t

see you   that one day   they would shoot
always folded into the robe you wore

gun or not   phone mistaken or empty handed   innocent
or not   there is this fold on itself  we sleep in

           in the fabric
           of this country’s culture