Where We Are Going

we didn't ask the directions back
where we are going there is not trap door
no false walls, no trick bookcases and no
hollowed books

things are harder and brighter where we are going
where we are going is no reflection of where we have gone
before

the house in my dreams with the roof caving in,
it won't be there

the stairway that twists and chips its way
underground and ends in a tiled bathtub full of
rust blood stains water death and sacrifice

will never be again

and the reflecting pool that has been there for
longer than the earth it is set in, the grey water
beckoning the light infecting and the bodies
you are sure line the bottom sliming
and dancing disintegration

will not be there

the stone house it is set in
the moss falling over everything

will not be there

the beast and his voice
will not be there

i will not look over my shoulder
and you will not fall asleep drunk
and uncovered

it will be larger than the rock
that choked you
and smaller than the wishbone
with which you pick your teeth

the kingdom will unfold
like an ink stain on a
wedding dress

and there will be no one to tend
to the stain

and everything will become the color
of new sky

He said

Something like an iceberg
he said
and i suppose if we mean that an iceberg
betrays and a ship assumes, yes.

wild and briny and dripping with the sea
he doesn't say but he would if he knew

soft skin and vintage furniture
he says and he is just a child

i do not like being ignored
he says

i hate you he doesn't say

may i take your picture
he says

the light is hot on my face
we talk about art and ideas

mortar between stones
string between soup tins

these capriccios
these pronouns
this collected adonis

dead bugs in the bottom of a jar

their pretty wings tore
their lovely light turned orange
and stopped

just stopped 

and now there is no light in my room

Come and Gone

"Ben Johnston, you know, the composer, his favorite drink was vodka, elderflower juice, and a dash of vermouth" said the woman behind the counter at the store with a British flag hanging outside, the store we only went into because we are discontented Americans. One woman wore a kilt, and the other, while not indulging our ignorance, was kind about it. 

The ocean shudders with me. Old men I wish I knew with white hair and strong jaws walk by one after another -- a succession of other people's fathers -- holding bulky cameras with lenses strong enough to capture the particulars of the day

which is so beautiful, I don't even mind that these men and their cameras do not belong to me. 

My coffee has become the temperature of the air 
around it and I can smell the smell of a restful sleep 
rising from my skin. 

Kelly is jumping rocks with the same camera all the old men have.
She is collecting things that she will later name and shape into a pattern of memory. 

Many people I know have become a space left in the air
a shimmering of dust and skin, a worn spot on the rug.

The sea, where the fishing boat crosses it, gashes. 

I measure the miles of water by the crossing scars
of ships come and gone. 

Catalogue Of Offerings

 

Peeling the rags of sleep from eyes

Unpiling the stones of night’s tomb

collecting them carefully to carry all day

Sweeping up the shards of final

shattered dream of the lover who left

(which is only as final as a wave)

and emptying them into an urn

shaped like a glass

Legs spread like the cut through

the center an apple; practiced fingers

touch the star and scatter the seeds

Nubility breaks

through what was

an impregnable damn

The water rush does not clean

but snaps trees and swallows houses

and destroys what practiced life

has settled in the valley

Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge thee:

Do not awaken love until it so desires

All these offerings to gods

we did not think were real until

we lost our lush to their jealous wives

Between The Times

Broken teeth zipper

broken jaw slackhang loose

A forest of three-legged tables

buzzing filaments of naked bulbs

children’s broken bicycles

piles and piles of nuptial china

shattered and discarded

A dog with one eye

gnawing at his own leg

Withered stare

into a city with dust clouds like locusts

The bonethief’s wife

stirs her cauldron of lecterns

green cards, computer chips

and virgin hopes

What is is after

and beneath and before

The unleavened bread 

leaves crumbs in his path

leading through the 

rhythm of Israel’s worship

to sun shining

on wounds no longer hidden

The puddles from last night’s rain

reflect the blue sky

He walks over, clothed

in white of birch bark

fancy tablecloths and lit cloud edges

smiles and says

       as if we’ve been talking all along

Didn’t you hear? It’s finished

And so it is. All the noise

of battle softened to the din of

dinner pots clinking and children yelling

in a park.

Where he has walked to get back to me

blooms red

In lengthening shadows we talk

about tomorrow

I have always believed, but I have not always followed. I have always believed, but I have not always felt. I have always believed, but I have not always believed in a God who is so detail-oriented that He would prepare me for heartbreak, and then carry me when my heart did shatter.

It could have begun ten years ago. Or maybe it started when I said the word "love".

While I was cleaning three nights ago, I found myself standing in the middle of my room holding a gift. A scarf. From the man I thought I would marry. He gave it to me three years ago. It was a gift from his travels. It is black and gold, woven delicately, exotic, soft, and warm. It is everything I believe in, beauty and function. It is the only thing left between us that is still functional. I wear it often, and it has become a mourning shroud. I wear it, I get compliments in it, I think of him, I miss him, I feel flashes of anger at him, then myself, then him, the flashes accelerate until I blush, my body feels the heat of deep pain, and then everything burns to ash and I am left with a hollow sadness.

As I stood there holding this gift, this tie to him, but also this tie to all the baggage and pain, I felt God telling me to hang it up on the nail above my bed. I did. I could not bear to see it hanging there; somehow it was easier to see it draped over a chair, in a heap on the floor resting easily on the little black dress I wriggled out of after a night out. It hurt to see it sterile and unused. I stared for a long moment, a moment pregnant with sadness, and just as the tears welled, He told me to pick up another scarf of a similar size, a gift from a dear friend, and hang it over the other scarf. "Cover it", He said. I did. Now I was crying. I stood on the end of my bed to reach and carefully arranged one gift scarf over THE gift scarf. I didn't understand why I had to do what I did, but I was obedient, largely because I had not energy to defy.

Later, candles lit, snow falling,  He said "because, I will cover you". 

the answers we get

If there is a moral,
it may be written as this:

The tracks converge
because of bending light.
They never actually meet.

Artists call this
perspective.

Its other name is
solitude, or love.