psalm 84
i need
birds and hosts
some kind of color
to wait for you
we wade in pools and egrets
everyone appears
but you
i will cut myself into a thousand pieces
and give you one — i will stand in your door
and ignore the tents —
psalm 5
listen
i will talk to you in the morning
by the washing machine
open window and salt
and shallow breezes
what you hate is what you hate
we are looking for a same thing
psalm 6
can you hear me
my bones are soft, unsaved
and wet : at night they are wet :
supple and waxed, ashamed
of themselves
psalm 99
i see you there.
or think i do :
perched on a fence with your pantsleg rolled up,
eating a pear or an apple, milk-creased spider
against your thigh
your name is a plucked thing in my mouth
a low chair, a cloudy
invention
they are angry
psalm 2
a veined thing
rage
let us break their hands
and hobble ourselves toward water
we are spore and pheasant :
we are reaved and speaking :
i will set you
a pot broken at the wheel
kindling
psalm 4
i grow large beneath my hands.
my fingers break and sway, the meat
of me besets.
i know you hear me.
chained to trees :
we slept and didn’t know it :
These poems respond to individual psalms from the Book of Psalms, King James Version.