The bells just stopped.
You mirage a dead world
in the white pool.
touch in the wind and sleep.
Duck-green and willow-silver…
has no wing touched your cheek?
Is there no bird
to weave a nest between your sullen limbs
and hatch a songster,
(amber with lizard eyes)
to chirp above your phrases: “Love, love, love…”
how to live in the echo of other places
I heard myself in every cell the singer sang
When she fell from favor
I fell too. I governed
Myself with silence.
I said no protest words when the stranger
Entered me. I’ll forget his face, I told myself
I closed my eyes and I did not forget it
The rose with its mouth like a child’s, asleep
Minaret, thorn, spire, steeple
Wishful flavor, exhausted people
Two cups of blood, one grain of sand
Receding flesh with your tooth in its hand
That other world, the world of the teapot
I Think My Body Feels, I Feel My Body Thinks:
subterranean
dreaming grace roots
“Everyday, a color,”
To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life
On a Grey Thread