self-portrait: (good-christ):

I-myself rear-end fish-tailed

dead-on-into lady-luck.

straight-shot. bulls-eye.

(why-me-why-now?) oddly-enough

same-said lady-here handed-over

cat-whiskers needle-and-thread, dice.

hat-trick: :our-lady cold-cocked

death-trap’s 1-eyed-jacks-wild poker-face.

“ante-up” might-could’ve blind-sided daddy-o.

not-so. order-up: umbrella-drinks:

(some-thing, any-thing). this-here lovely-gal?

asphalta. the-cat’s-meow. a-men.

             When I sink into that void I fall as far

as I want; no word or mercy can stop me.  Between sorrow &

raw wonder it was only a little hard to watch her go,

and if I were to paint it I’d use orange, deep reds, maybe black.

Know this, she murmured:  if ever hope had a reason,

                          you might be mine.

She said, this is singular, the dark comfort

of heartache; please give me your hand, she said;

drew a word like need along faultlines in my palm; we were quiet with

each other and when we woke from it hours had vanished.  No, I don’t

remember the edges exactly, but I see a boat on a river, a wake

grazing the current; someone there at the helm, someone else

rapt beneath a blanket in the bottom of the hull; she looks up, unrav-

eling silence:  mine moon kneel, resplendence, that all of we who

noontide know you, each, might give thanks.

        Often, all that matters?:  how

a face reflects light; move the shadows,

ruin subsides.  The point-blank sun slides down,

its shadow slips in the opposite direction.

Belly churning, a spider

reaches for sky, ties a silver bow, drops.  Her splendor?:

air-born knots:  the silky web a pomegranate best taken

dewy seed by dazzling seed.  Perched on air as if it were clay, she

lightens the meaning of falling.  For astonished fools,

especially, get on a level with god.  Fools fall for neat tricks.  Tricks like

yanking a shadow away (it does happen)(in an instant)(turn a corner).

on her face; the par-

i

c

u

l

a

way in which a particular

plea is spoken:language

s

a

accident of gravity. To

know doubt: be familiar

i

t

that voice: sorrow as

the root of gratitude.

n

d

e

e

words reveal by some

e

a

n

other than math & this is her

wish: send somthing precise.

a

k

the hard gnarled

trunk of a tree;

h

notch left

by it...on

h

fingers, especially.

And when the bone is

e

n

(the flesh a hinge, another

angular fitting of timbers)

h

e

offer, with abandon

e-ven the small-est

o

u

r.

I wrote you a letter last night about need

because the wildflowers are coming up in the grass,

because I have confused love with longing;

this room smells brittle.

                        Hyacinth,

o sorrow, calendula, o suffering,

out a window or awkward I look to daisies

as if these alone could lessen the pain of madness

and today the gray clouds look undone,

look forgotten like the drift of my life

against a slate sky that melts into april’s body,

leaves the scent of small bursts of blossom behind

filling the air with humility, and I breathe it.

The language of flowers is not a dead language.

I return over and over to the fabric, lace,

mystery they bring, not because I’ve been

ravished by these ladies, which I have,

but because these three days of no sun

demand devotedness, as if devotedness

were the thing behind our want

for quickening

         desire and its delicate hand.

What touch does not reveal

can be seen with each slip of petals,

and as when a poet

         joins mercy to beauty

I do nothing much and am moved.

Anew, the petals cascade

like grace-notes from a harp,

and I have not yet brought you

anything that matters.  I have

not yet brought you my heart undone,

nor been naked beside you,

petal-soft as my daring,

          that bewildering and crimson yes.

Of late I learned an individual is a dividual

which cannot be divided.  How is that possible,

one undivided, when choices

part the waters of certainty

every time we wake?  

           A billion seconds

is 32 years, [220 million, 7];

yet the line is not our frame of reference,

we watch best from the edges.  One need not

come to the end of 7 long years

waiting for the unforgetable star,

when one believes that 7 years of rare occasions

shine down.  That these days come fast

upon the centrifugal pouring of moonlight

means not much, if anything, to our sun,

but almost everything to me;

to wait here, then, is a matter of luxury.

Indeed, digging my fingers deep in loose dirt

presses all the planet into my palm, she

whispering, what is sheltered will wither;

I made you and I can close you down.

          Quiet, but quietly now, ask,

if one hand holds something beautiful,

must the other hold something else?

Impressive world, o horrible world,

bring light and unfurl the exact number

of violets that binds us, bringing to mind

these marvels:  silentnesses

that have swept my breath away.

I don’t think of sound, I think of you,

and how there are no buildings high enough here

to see you; how we are often

weaker than our devotion, weaker

than we mean to be;

                   rather,

imagine a breathless echo

for all its accelerating pageantry;

          let it be no secret,

          the hollow sound is mine.