The Steel Ring

Middlebury River

From the center of the river, I walk bare-

foot on stones heaped

                  in the sandy bed, thinking,

if I swallow one, I’ll become a receiver

  because my body no longer

has a natural

    rhythm, because the blood

has two seasons—fight or flight—

because I’m just driving through,

I don’t have an hour or a camera,

and back

home the harbor’s full

of trash, and any trickle

through the alleys has to pass beneath

a dead city rat, so there’s no way

for the heart to know when to rush,

to still, to ice over;  

but a stone would

transmit, like a monitor in a child’s

room, the call from the river—

sometimes a song,

sometimes a cry—from what’s hoped for,

from what’s lost, and the no

                                            sound             in between.

New Kiss

His kiss is an opening, even as

it’s the last

brick in the wall that seals another’s off in airless

space. A second ending,

his new erases

the promised land of the other’s old, and I want to keep

them both. Hard to give up

the adopted country

of an ex-lover’s kiss, having lived with its doctrine

for so long you forget the wilds

you used to wish for.

Because the kiss feels unfinished—we never got

to the bottom of it, after all, after

all that searching

in the mouth’s dark, where somewhere there’s a mirror,

or a window, or a sky where,

if you find yourself

watching from the other side—as if you were the moon—

over the dreamer (also you),

then you’ll never have

to go that deep again, just hand over your heart and be done

with its care and feeding, just go

to sleep in a new cage.

Perhaps every year we should gather those we’ve kissed

and kiss them again to remind ourselves:

yes, the lie

continues, the way we meant to create it. Because you want

to burn, but only in small doses, the light

of real love

is too damn bright—even the earth turns away from the sun.

(note: read the 2nd lines all the way down as another poem, an echo)

Against Happiness

When we argue part of me

is pushing you to leave

so I can win

you back. So after the near-

death, we can raise passion's

form with the rush

of first breath from bursting

into love again.

Then comes the stale drift

of happiness in its full sun,

without angle or edge,

until it's time for another fall

off a cliff, and the thrill

of not knowing who

will grab the saving

branch on the way down,

then the other's hand. Or if.

Aubade

Longing subtracts

me — it must have

something to offer

the void. There,

my murmur of want

is the sound of a desert

clock that chimes

once every century,

ticks once a year.

Its movement

my disintegration.

Green

I saw it once, in early summer. The sky

hung indifferent, and then—the small mid-air

collision of shrike seizing sparrow.

This butcher bird impales its prey on

hawthorn or barbed wire, stuns with death-

blows to the skull by a hawk-like beak,

before tearing flesh to pieces. Then body

left as warning or dare. What eternal war

exists between the two, what terrible desire?

I wish for myself the heresies the sparrow sings,

a surrender to the first stab at the breast.

Instead, the jays still argue at the feeder.

The air is still the dim gray gauze after rain,

the grass washed raw and shining.

All There Is

The last absence I believed

     was whenever it snowed as a child—

myself, the world, replaced.

     I trusted whatever created that silence

and knew when to send it.

     Now it's the page that returns

to blank again and again, the words

     missing. Or maybe the poems themselves

are white, resting one on top of another—

     and who knows how many layers

there are, or how to read them,

     or how much longer they'll fall.

Sing, Girl, Sing

In blood, in breath, in tears,

is there any language left

to speak, to translate the muddy

river of being until it runs clear—

like changing wine back into water.

Sing your sins until your heart

is lighter than the feathers

that appear outside your door.

You are too good at leaving,

forgetting, destroying. Wait

until dark, then walk under the trees

where each seed is a wheel

of time, not just a season.

Listen to the voices inside.

The sticks you throw into

the space between you and them

will one day build a bridge.

Unexpected Visit

After a painting by Remedios Varo

Remember: this is the eye of a dream.

She faces a doorway.

Time has been long and out

of order. She knows the figure

won't come until evening, but lights

the candle in the afternoon,

hoping he'll be early.

One wall is tearing

open to let in dragonflies.

So it will rain,

but later, as the moon is still

foaming in the bare trees.

This is the myth of a heart.

Every hour she removes

one piece of clothing, until

she wears only her hair—

long with waiting—wrapped   

around her breasts and legs—

no point in hiding. It's warm

enough with the candle.

One wall is water.

There's a hand reaching

through, grabbing her wrist.

Someone will come,

that's the purpose of a door-

way: entrance, passage,

transmission.

This is the temptation of memory.

She will leave,

run out among the trees—

her hair, snowing.

He enters: a machine    

with flowers and wine,

hiding his smile

in the brim of his hat,

bringing love or death,

or a premonition of both.

One wall is a doorway in a mirror

where she sees the moon

is finally finished

with the trees.

The hand is her hand,

Pulling her out of the candle.

Remember: this is the story.

There's room enough

in the doorway to run past him.

To hand the dream to the trees.