Fox

I walked out of the dark

into the light I fell:

through branches of blue painted trees,

the air like ice against my skin, the moon’s face

a mirror into which I climbed,

descending past the sky and the angels

praising the handmaid of the Lord,

past the oligarchs of heaven who watched

my feet pad heavily against the fir blanket beneath.

She panted beside me, her teeth reflecting

the moon’s light, her fur knit with twigs and leaves.

Up to the heavens I stared at the gods standing beneath me

as they guarded their fire, their arms folded tight.

I stared as she, in her russet, sidled next to me,

Rubbing my leg and pleading

For silence and a place to rest her head.

To A Boy Entombed

A horse on the wall of their hotel room

carried her away to a place she’d always go,

and yet, had never been: to a boy,

entombed in falling snow, out in the moon-

light, throwing his voice against her

window, which glowed yellow in the night.

He sang out his life, lying

frozen against the earth: for her.

Thirty years later tears dropped

down her cheeks to the bedsheets

while her husband rested his hand on her

neck, her shoulder, her arm:

a stone feather.  And snow tapped

silently against the window.

I & That I Am

Snow drifts westward, general
all over the valley.  Heavier
in the mountains, I suppose.
Thoughts of Joyce drift
with the snow, though
internally.  As if without him
I would not be - and without
this snow I would not be.  Would
I not be without these? I think, 
therefore.  I am.  And without
these?  There is only these.
And I.

Parralax

Within the darkness, a girl, her hands
against her chest.  Eyes closed.

Existing: a room of shelves, endless,
unnumbered.  This room
is round, with ladders.

And she is here.  Browsing.
She opens a book.  The first
page.  Eyes swollen.  Wet paper:
transparent.
Another book.  The same.  Repeat.

Looking down, she sees the floor,
littered with books.  Red. Brown.  Black.
Now : higher.  Something new.
Dry pages and lightness.  Foreign
familiarity.  She climbed and read
a different life: he loved her.
Not as he loved her now.  Not her now.
He.
      In the darkness and quiet.  And
he.  In her.
Transparent.

With a Cup of Tea

I watch leaves swim beyond
my window
morosely toward the green sea,
boiling white where the edges
reach longingly toward
clouds, relatives left behind,
sisters
and warm.

I watch the leaves like I see you
standing next to me, your
eyes and lips content,
not wanting.

Collection. Eviction.

In the morning grey, lamp-posts
draped in recent rain, I saw
him, his head like late wheat
as he drifted on the breeze toward
me.  I let the wind wrap her
arms around me, gently
like the time I fell from the crib
and mother touched my cheeks
with the sky and a thousand

fluttering butterflies, sweetpea
blooming as her fingers recreated
the sun, moon and stars for me.
His hand rose slowly, burning
flameless against my winter skin
and he stood by my side
and stared, eyes like empty
rooms, toward the midnight
sky, yellow with august thunder

storms.  Between us
another, a stranger, lemon and
grains of white dissolving
against my tongue.  He sees my eyes
filled with stacks of papers
regarding my father's passing:
dates attached to names of people,
who used to visit our home,
that room above the grocer's.  These

are the moments I remember, these
collection and eviction notices.  He,
my father, scribbled on the backs
of envelopes, scratched elegies
of a man alone, numbers
and numbers.  There were always
numbers written in the way
his hand lectured my cheeks and back,
ink-scratched like the envelopes.

I wondered then, as I wonder now, if
the stranger standing between us,
this snow forming grey on the road,
smiled inside when he saw me
kneeling sidelong on the kitchen floor,
my skirt blooming over my knees, my eyes
clouds of early spring rain.  I wonder
as, between my teeth, he melts
into my throat, lingering and sour.

Across the Grass

Without compulsion, my finger rises
to my lips, and I pause my wandering.  He stands
across the grass, mindful and watching, listening
with ears like vacuums, pulling in sound
from the far reaches of the universe.  His fur,
unkempt, rustles in the wind, his suit-vest catching
the dizzying leaves like a sunset.  He, like
many others, is late, he mentions without moving.

His ears drop back, inquiringly yet cautious
as if it is I who instills fear.  As if I will move threatening
toward him; or perhaps away from him,
like so many others.  Perhaps that is why he, brown
like the orangeing sky, stands, forelegs
at his sides, eyes black with sorrow.  He's late,
he seems to say again, though no words breach
the windblown silence between us.  I know,
I reply, and I'm sorry.

Blades of grass press against my dark legs
as the wind lifts my skirt like the grass, my legs,
toward him without volition.  Still he stands.
Always still as if his wife and children are already packing
clothes and small belongings into bags
and walking out the green door, which complements
the brownstone so well (his wife would always say),
like his pants and tie complement his fur.  Perhaps
they are already gone as he stands there, across from me.

In the sky beside us, the sun walks its long journey
home, returning to wife and child, and I ask where
are you going.  I left a week
to roam, walking through the grass, the autumn
filling me.  I left to roam.  I, the other one.
Without moving I've reached him, my skin resting
on his foreleg, warm and enveloping, his fur
swallowing my coffeed hand.  I left to roam,
he says again without saying.  I know, my arms
whisper as my head gently rests
against his blushing shirt, pink in the autumn night.