Small cracks on a Ming Vase, like moistened hairs. A globe of soft ceramic cream. Delicate blue men with robes Of violet fire Walk blithely past the age-born Barriers.
(If you want to see this, Stand behind me. Feel the Ripples of pleasure across my hand That become the Final form of the vase).
All we know is only Light, reflection, absence. I know A candle and the white light of the vase, The black cracks of No light. The light, and the reflection of Blue men in the shudders In my arm; As if I were a Chinaman a thousand Years old, walking through Dark black cracks.
originally appeared in Remington Review
The Strongest Building
Every screw works itself Free of the girder, eventually, backing out like mice Gnawing at the cage until their teeth ache and bleed Until, at the very end, it can cast off its bolt And dive free into the street. All the world can come crashing after, For this moment like a dream.
But dreams are on their way down too The night is drawn and hammered, like Mice birthing mice in a Lust to fill all the corners So they can all starve a little.
As the sandstone figures cool the ears and watching Eyes tend to drop off Fall ringing into the air Jealously watched. Plates of glass gather the scene Plates of steel squirm uncomfortably All that holds them in place is A little confidence, like love thinks it never Dies. (I don’t have to tell you The bolts are writhing in their place Staring down Picking out A place to land).
Scheduled to Sail
Dawn is breaking All over the floor like the Good china against the door The arrangements are made before Someone will meet you at the airport Take care of yourself Dear.
Out here, at dawn, All the water smoothes over as though Someone had lain down upon it, as though It were giving up on a long convalescence. We shared The sea in silence. We overstepped the broken boards On the pier We saw sailboats. They were crawling on the horizon You asked me if I could put you on one, send you to Martinique The best I can do is send you a letter But I don’t think these words would Fly far.
Out here it still seems like yesterday Out here if you lay your face in the water it begins Right away to work on your cheeks, polish your eyes In a thousand years the waves would polish your face Smooth like a china bowl, featureless like The bow of a boat senseless Like a jet hanging on the horizon Motionless, full of regret Like a day receding you wish Had never come, like A day the waves strain to reach But never quite do.
The Nail
I followed you on Easter morning Like taking part in slaver’s trade We sipped our coffee, read the Times Unaware, I am unmade.
I wash my hands a hundred times The silken softness of your back Sleepless in the crowding gloom The sweaty silkness of your back.
Pinioned on the middle deck My hands no longer are my own Your voice receding on the shore Like shackles to an anchor stone.
The deftness of your argument, Compelling, but to no avail I’m unwilling to accept There was a gift within the nail.
