Untitled

The sky is slanted
the sky is soft

it has the patience for us. I am
driving and you are driving and

I have the sweet and sharp taste
of a clementine on my tongue just as you

are towelling off or
threading your belt
through its loops.

The sky is different
every evening
and infinitely patient

for the evening
when you drive
to the house
a small house, an unusual house
a house for after
a house for
what is the story of who lives there
on the river
in the reeds
on the banks
a house of another time
and nothing to do
with anything else
sparsely furnished
and me
already there
to meet you

a light is on. it is evening. you've come
a long way. you pull in.
I don't know
if I'm there or not. I imagine
I am.

I never expect it. I
am not waiting. I simply

make note of
the evening skies.

Documentary

My pushpin goes here on
the map of your death
to this point, to what I want to
remember of it
the wind, the breeze, the

hazy sunlight and the feeling
in my temples of looking out into the woods
sitting beside you
you, going out, coming in, coming back
you, reaching across the sheet for my hand
which I did not expect
you, with your surprisingly cold hand

you, saying, I'm ready
and nothing more

all the brown and heavy oak leaves
more than falling, more than raining down
blown down, made to come down
from so high
from so much another place to here
the journey so fast, so quickly done
some skittering dry and light through the wide and
open door
there isn't any word
for how they sailed, slid, and sounded, so light!
from the trees out there
to the room, in here
where you were and weren't

it was Halloween
it was unusually warm, and humid
like spring, in fall

and the high voices of your children
and my children
finding and excited
out walking in the woods and
unmindful of us, or this moment

like the outside
breeze and leaves
carrying to us.

As Told By

After I tore
my life down
and ended up with
nothing but a

smooth river
without wind and with
brown and gold reflections
of a bare and dry and
sad November

I moved
into a raftered loft
in an old hat factory
on that same river
sliding by my floor-to-ceiling windows all day

and one day
in a different November
I sat up
in my bed and
you were in my bed and
I was not the prettiest or best
woman you ever knew

but the one you wanted
and we wrapped
ourselves in sheets
and opened the french doors
and let the flurries in
so cold
so fresh
without prologue
without epilogue

only that morning.

The Funeral Was Friday

Two red
hurricane flags
one above the other

bend the pole
snap the wind

mark the surge

landfall is
already made

when I slide
legs up and
body down

into a hot bath soak
of fragrant Japanese flowers
at two in the afternoon

I rinse my hair underwater
I have not done that since I was a child

love is enough to choose
we love enough
we love
not enough
to be a choice

white is my color of
mourning

again we snap the car doors shut
plane doors shut
everything, shut
everything, boarded up
then rushing,
then gone

again I cross
I make the arc of
a red lacquered bridge

I make an arc
I cross the red bridge

I come back to you.

Process Comment

When its particularly intense times, good or bad, I don't have any urge to write about it. What I want, at those times, is to be present. Fully. Completely. All there, and nowhere else. That is the satisfaction. Expressing myself in any other way other than living it well doesn't appeal. It is different than being too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed, too anything to write, or take a picture, or whatever. Reflection is incompatible with being there for me. While D. was sick these past 7 weeks, and when he died, and the days after, I did not want to say anything about it in this way. I just wanted to be there. And I was.

I don't know how to evaluate that. I suppose in my own opinion it cements me as a hobbyist and not a Writer, or Artist, or Poet. People I know whom I would term those things I think would not be able to live the experience fully without also and more simultaneously expressing it in their chosen forms.

I usually err on the side of saying every goddamn thing. But not at those times, good times or bad times. There I like the quiet of living, only.

Bad poet. Bad bad poet.

Untitled

All roads
connect and all
colors make black and

godless angels are what
follows me

I will hate those
paniculata blooms when they
are old
and dried
and dusty
in a green glass vase
in a dim corner
of your dining room

but on their woody stems
out in the yard
they lush over
dark pink and
symmetrical to either side
an arresting October funeral pyre

die on the vine then
connected
when December begins
at last

to furiously blow.

Untitled

I think its
untrue and worse when you
say things like

there are no second chances and

I tell you
I have to tell you
I don't bother to tell you

that you're wrong

I say things like

everything is better
on the ground
I love the ground

my feet were on the ground
on the sidewalk
in the round-bulb light at night
outside that old theater
one foot back
the other leaning forward
to kiss your lip
which was salty from popcorn
and mine sweet
from pink lemonade
I put one arm
around your neck
when I kissed you
which is funny for a girl to do

later and only once
you turned me towards you
when we were lying
on the ground
by placing a palm
at the smooth of my hip
and pulling
and I turned

the ground was a chance
I love the ground

I love the two chances
that happened on the ground

I will bury you in the ground
I will sprinkle you
on the ground
I will predecease you
and turn into the ground

that was your second chance
to stop saying things
about second chances
anymore.