of heavy robes  the concert of the mind

winter branches budding into praise

& the coda opens
its mouth
of longing—

in wait for the arms to drop.

*

Can the soul labor righteously?

If not, is the righteous
soul merely idle

ornament of resistance

until in the grasp
of his palm

made useful–

as in the grape hyacinths

finally bloomed
and stripped
of its fruit

by a child’s restless wonder.

*

How do we talk
of it, or measure
its tire?

Cracked shell.
Shore arched back

with the tide
(as if the rind

of our earth peeled.)
Calloused hand.

Autumn leaf.
A shattered bulb.

How we praise
the body adorned
with labor:

muscle finally
a form of gauze,

covering

what must
be a wound.

*

How wrongly we have mapped our journey.

The false north stars /   you who

shouted chaos and the earth coiled

its tongue / As if somewhere a window

had shattered  /  the river

a stream of  glass / cutting  light,

bleeding with it,  think moth /

( wings soft oars wading through

the plum pond of night ) / how sharp

their want  at the lip of the bulb.

O  gather eternity, its wax /and oils,

make a wick of this broken earth.

Hot coffee stains the kitchen air
a permanent gray. I put away
the brownies you made
in an old plastic Chinese
take-out container and
think that you are lovely –

But you are a friar’s lantern
and capable of disappearing
from the closest proximities –

I just want you to come home
and fuck me and put me to bed.

though no thunder
marks the storm.

How many lives go
unmeasured

into that flash of depth
and distance?

The orphan rain still
falling, song

of memory’s absence.
The insects with

their croaking want.
This quiet

trembling, the exile’s
journey home.

          (And this all before two angelic potheads
          descended from the heavens asking, “Do you
          guys need a jump?” And yes, yes they did, &
          thank you. “Do you guys have any weed?”)

a yawn, a stretch
of sinew and bone.

Every inch of the body’s
violin straining to play

a memorable chord. A man
away from his labor:

the Finch dancing dew
off its feathers;

two Robins as light,
blending in and out of dawn.

Let your waking settle
into this, a caress

to cage your quiet
sparrow breathing—

the mud not yet shed
from your lung’s unending

chambers; my own eyes still
heavy red, ripe with dreaming.

Wings too flutter within me,
Adam, like morning

Birds—which you have so
utterly named—after they

have gathered down
and devoured the seeds.

Space curves different
On each side of my glasses.
Not what Einstein meant, though.

Why put flowers on sills?
Why not on other things?
Oh wait. Dumb question.

In America,
We know cereal by its sound.
When it’s poured, I mean.

The trees look friendly.
Hey, don’t the trees look friendly?
The trees look friendly.

This coffee table
Has scratches painted on it!
Jesus Christ! Décor!

by the fence. I’ve seen the flurry of squirrels

in spring cling at your feet, claw your bared

torso and climb the height of birds. Absurd

that you were nailed there in the backyard. Left

idle to the labor of weather. Angled just right

so that a mother washing dishes could feel

the rush of hot water and gaze through the kitchen

window at your immaculate form. I have

watched too—at a distant—in the periphery

of comings-and-goings. I knew your name

but never said hello. Because you were the same

man radiant in the paintings, holding your heart

of fire. The emblem gleaming gold at dawn light

off a brother’s chest. How this house has grown

quiet like forsaken ash. But now in the breadth

of this blizzard, three days in, the slowly receding

blanket of snow prostrate at your feet, I am

in awe at your maker. Who said no to precious

metals, who grew tired of the scent of wood, who

lacquered your body with the dew of bones,

a whiteness that makes you cold and somehow more

approachable. You there crucified in silence,

basking like snow in warmth’s cruel ecstasies.

For Caridad Svich

You taught me to shake violently

when the moment is right

– and the moment is always right

for shaking violently –

and to hone my teeth

to rosethorn points

and bite down hard on whatever comes my way:

wood or flesh or cosmic space

or none or all of the above.

The second step is never letting go.

Now when I see two people

they are energy vectors crashbanging

with no remorse and I keep the laughter in my lungs

so as not to ruin everything,

because, like ice sculptures and holidays,

everything is easily ruined.

Again the embrace: a makeshift circle,

guitar wire scratch, the plucking of strings.

Earlier you asked me why I grow so

quiet with the music of friends. There,

the grace of your hands: chords of words

that don’t exist. The caress of keys like

fields of snow being praised by drops

of rain. There, the nameless voice of faith,

the crisp unwavering mother of absence.

How music gives a history of flesh to

the body: I at once this man and that boy

who threw fists of mud at the regal

autumn trees, for their awe was too much.

My feet that refuse tempo. The squalor

of my voice. How each song is like those

fading leaves: burning, godless, and

radiantly falling. And if I could offer any

-thing other than silence . . . I know

too just as autumn is not truly for us,

this moment is not for me. But I have lost

the name of my hands. I want to say

piano, cello, violin, but they are trespassers

to the arthritis in my wrists. The question

never why I threw wet earth at those

trees, but why they continued to bare

themselves of splendor, asking no

questions: only the gifts of the body,

only the gifts and the silences after.