An ocean-like hush
An ocean-like hush and carpet trails light from the bathroom window just on the other side of the door I wake to quiet on the streets no deal on the corner no house of friends I sit unattached with barns opera girls and faint little buddhas I listen to the tides to currents and brakes bakers of heroic scones the tarnished burdens of socks nested in drawers my head rests under a boy exhausted from a long-gone war there he sleeps naked on a cot as the north of the mountains pours into our heads I too am exhausted from war and lie curled in his armpit I wonder about his smell his black and white lips the ocean’s hush as if the distant salt of skin will heal me
Simple pansies goat-haired on the green table I hear them so faintly a tremble of peeps there’s no explanation for this great shedding the cough that pushes out of my sickness there’s no signature walking down the road no routine no posture of papers no grand divorce
The prayers that saved me were necessary empty of noise from anyone living they did not invite me out they did not care for my masochism nor did they know my pretense they did not darn or knit or settle debts they did not know a garden of dousers or this long heat
The airport slot machines in Las Vegas all glitter and broken sidewalks the over-the-shoulder laughter behind the weather reports minus 7 in Buffalo I’m shaking open a plastic bag underwater in my grandfather’s fedora wide-awake with spirits talking in shoes a sieve of coral and little fish passing through
I beg you to stay unformed to consider entropy on a permanent basis but you come something out of nothing and the mansions of my house are ever cordial they invite you close drawing you in the low mumble of bees the rustle of bells a follicle of carriages cavernous with horse breath in the snow
I find you in the winds your legs covered in fur I find the felt slippers that hold the shape of your feet I find your red beard and the darker hairs on your chest I find you in an arm a northern gulf to a southern gulf I find you speaking in sheets
in the scratched crystal of the watch my sister passed on to me
she said my father was wearing it when he died I first thought the face said ark but the little hand stopped just there and buried the word at the bottom it read Himalaya no leather no crystal no Rolex but merely indents in the nylon band from the daily circles of his wrist the scrapes next to his hand of push-ups and snow shovels of books and subways
Like snows at dawn the porcelain dancers in the window stand on powder-blue bases silvery and vigorous with possibility some neon some pastel some hyper-real with acid lemon boutonnières and spats toes an urgent Degas red the lips on the filigreed boy a tender charcoal the smooth mound of his crotch vertiginous and sylvan dampened from sweat or a careless pee we smell that the tights need to be changed but we wait in a room full of laborers a long journey to come our nights scavenged in a sleep of mortars
We sing with the trains the soldiers the graves we sing with the ash our songs rousing the barn owls and the bottom-most whales asleep in the bracken we watch them walk out of the mud without legs growling and minty
Three women bring horses three others make slings for the dense matter of broken things the golden uncertain bark the soft sands and the smells of decay we glimpse the brown promise of gardens the slow heavy journey to the edge of the sea
Whispers in the marshes the long-beaked 10 p.m. birds pass through and in those angel skins we wake with a hint of going of loss then a sending cinder a let go hallelu a lotus rumbling and former-bodied in the rinse of outrage we become thick around gods and grasses looking for old names in doorframes the middle roads of half-mooned cherries the hollow curves of coal in dark rummage
We drive toward the ocean not braking for the rim streams of forests and slate cliffs covered in carvings of praise we bring our boots and our cashmere but we are not coming back we do not tell anyone about the dread the persistent swimmer who sinks then breathes then sinks then breathes again reaching toward the next boat
We walk with the night-blooming the creosote the tourniquets of willows and high desert owls the feathered necklace the giving of salts my gorgeous home of cups my heart this evening a store of ranches of signs of brown syrup and lust a tarry bit of hot sidewalk cornflowers in the cracks
The lines in my eyes mean fortune the dusk leads to a pink sky in the morning to the smell of creosote after cool rains grains of brittle needles the worn stock of braille too faint to read the pregnancy of boys their caves of molting earth the bright orange garnish of last spring’s salamander in the still bare woods what is to come? what tiny pause full of child hovers just there?
Not unlike the west but acting west the moon and the matte-white rocks call to us like mallow beds or the inside of an ear my idiot love of hats a barrel of rinsed plums pots of green mud between my toes I need a meal only once every few days the fields spread below in a buoyancy of grains a hat for protection a hat for collecting dues a hat for holding water
Your tooth anchored and stunning shouldered in secret dreams of temples and fields capes and antlers you lead a herd of curly-haired boys sails for shirts cups for dust a curious tea made from an ancient suit of love in gentle mouths you fall into the plush a morning call to prayer my father in a pocket blowing past my jaw
You give me a blue and white boat for a hotel and a rail line I’m told it’s not a fair exchange a depreciating asset for something more solid but the boat is seaworthy and takes us from the washed-out harbor with its rising seas to the high fjords and glacial bluffs where I resist the urge to call out fortunes or finances titles in ships of grief every tree bent to signs instead I pin my suck onto your gaze and choose these four fortunate legs entwined and cradled in a green purse arenas so soft so liquid and sweet a feather necklace of buds
A nymphy dance on keyboards a night in the dirt a fairy boy in my bed your feet on the pink waters turning to moss the clear dark winters by fires a flight over the bridge for nail polish a branch from last year’s storm these are my breaking hours my heart against yours traveling by sea you are wrapped in a blue scarf I think you were raised by a moose