In patches I will strip my skin
And roll in soil
until the flesh is stinging
dark
and I am of the earth

Black plastic bag: as used for corner liquor sales
just lay flat and died in the last green patch of grass, ragweed and mugwort
on the block north of Rising sun and the Boulevard.
All round that area treestumps blossom with stuffed bears
named for the dead, sacrificed and offered, heart and bone
to the gods of american automotive excellence
turned to meat like possums or deer
ground like burger
after being raised so carefully
and taught their figures
1 and 1 make 2
and hourglass makes a wolf whistle
grass drinks sun and rain
all the seasons pass in sequence
over the row home roofs
and the asphalt, cement, brick tile metal world
makes dens for young and old
to huddle in, til the next warm quiet day

I'd learn french
for Brel
bengali for Tagore
persian for Rumi
music for bach
for my history, yiddish, russian, swedish, hebrew, cherokee.
welsh, for the sound.
chinese for chen taiji.
german for weltschmertz
and still
there you are
impenetrable.

copout

existing is easy
but damn I wish
a lot of things

Brick houses stand
At ridiculous attention
Like buckingham guards
Tourist trees and cats
make giggling attempts
To shake them out

Imagine the world
On fire
houses burning
Tar streets ablaze
eager seeds on updrafts
Spreading

A heat wave has broken and
colder winds carry another august
Stores change signs
Pretending, behind glass
they belong to the seasons
mannequins wear
" Your fall fashions "
In bus mirrors I wear thinning clothes
My face narrows without fat
With fewer teeth
Tonight I saw a dying raspberry
New planted
Later
A cab honked, still got stuck at red
A bartender carried her bottle opener in her right jean pocket
Like a gunfighter
Pistol ready
Took many shots
All hit
Tonight I saw the slow river
flowing in a movie paced with
The brown water
Next to me a friend
We dated in high school
Stole kisses in auditoriums
She aged like a mirror
I see her fifteen years
And more to come
other years not taken
she touched her leg in the theater, sighing
People want things in their own time
you may be inches off
they don't want you.
you're a witness
I saw billboards
Tires spinning
Drivers eager
Their best shoes useless
I have made myself a passenger
can't disembark. Can't backtrack.
to the summer
Your arms
I heard tonight a stampede clap of dress shoes on pavement
Short black dresses running
White skirts running
The whole 10th and market
Like a marathon race
From mystery to mystery
a hundred strangers
with a schedule
keeping time

Another message typed and  left unsent
Another night of dreams of discontent
We speak, we kiss, occasionally I search for where you've gone
But always, you. Which makes my waking hours seem wan, pathetic, wasted - but - instead of dying to a final "no" I leave you be, and die in silence, slow.

burials.

the cat's brought in by a nurse
borne high, raised in the air
like royalty
draped in a deep red knit shawl,
bedded on a blanket

produced from the corner of a pristine lab

nasa for the insides of dogs

blinking ultrasounds; shining chrome; white plastic;

rows of screens, and rolling devices

and somewhere in that, a pile of old blankets

for the king.

He's placed with ceremony on a steel slab

looks around weakly, panting

the nurse has learned eye contact

and offers "all the time you need"
but if he could "give more time" -

well, it's a cruel joke, if not meant to be 

it's a very small body under the fur.

so where the catheter and tape are wrapped

the leg's too tiny, doesn't fit the whole

the vet on call is shaking,
she's put down two of her own this year

she apologizes often, to us, and to the patient

and explains like "Naming of Parts"

"this is to flush the catheter"

"and it will be quick"

"and he may stretch"

japonica in the spring and cock the rifles

he'll be gone, 

unless we stop her pressing a plunger.

well.
it's been fifteen years

of yellow eyes engaging, disengaging,
meeting mine, or studying walls
intensely
which seemed to me uninteresting

those animals we sometimes see, meat by the road

they weren't ours

we have not seen the world with them. 

It's practice for our own mortality

or we're practicing all the time

and maybe the cat says fuck you

cause he's not practicing anything

but mostly he's grey, like the vet's two cats

and mostly he's panting

until all at once he relaxes.

There's a lot of joking

held back for the sake of strangers.

A claw catches as I lift the limp body, on that strange regal cowl of a shawl

in life he never could manage his claws

and would catch

and plead to be released from

screens, and carpets. sofas. skin.

"help".

I spoke for him often.
gave him a deep, curt voice, that said things so matter of fact. 

and as the needle goes in the catheter, full of milky fluid, and the poor vet 

allows herself to act               -           to proceed

I hear him say

"what's that thing do?"

but I don't voice it

for her sake.

Of course he's been dead for verses now

but we replay things.

trying to find what we've let go

most of my writing is moments of wish

ing back 

shoveling dirt in the height of a hot day

sweating

all the emotion is lost

muscles engaged elsewhere

lift, turn, lever, push

perhaps I'll plant a tree

I know one, still small nearby, that may be movable.

Announcing the moment

is an action 

like brushing one's teeth when one would rather not

"friends" 

with whom I never speak

now know.

the dirty secret of mourning

is life - everyone knows it - 

elephant at the cocktail party, trying to look prim

of course we see our lives still pass

still want another bite of lunch

even when our loves have left us at the altar

those deaths sting like wasps

the living leaving us

keep leaving daily

bees sting once, drop the stinger, have done

when the dead are buried, really we've let them go

pat myself on the back, for letting go.

instead of snarling.

"you weak so and so - go try again.

we're so strong

when we dig a grave

spoon dirt over it

leave rocks

tell stories... drink.                  oppressed,

by time, who leaves us standing, when we say we'd go.

but the living give us chances

to go first

we cower              -             or are you not like me?

I cower, then. the water's cold...

so after all, I'll live.

he slept like the dead, so often, I observed

teeth bared

paw in the air

curled oddly

here he is with no heart

and of course all those times

I was correct to say so.

when I have no heart

someone will bury me

and who might look for me in my old bed? you'll be looked for - not by me,

but:

someone will stand by; affect a funny voice, to mimic mine.

"Why didn't you come to my funeral"?

Didn't he always sound that way? Wondering why people had gone?

He couldn't stay present - accept what he had. Wanted someone new

or old 

or happier days.

he was a funny sort of cat

minor edit

because you've not asked me

I have nothing to give

these words must float as clouds, like fog, obscuring light

because you must be looking past them, for the meaning

or for me

and I can't offer those

except through words,

and those not chosen but found, not arranged but scattered,
like crumbs

what would you even ask?

what answer?

if you read aloud, perhaps?

but even then. the worlds around you

are louder than these words.

listening to beethoven

at the crescendo
I'm terrified
the end is near

Remembering thirteen years

gone by in a memory

which takes no time at all

no none

how many times I've cut my nails

learned one new thing

forgotten

how I was young but old already

and hadn't met

the ones I've lost

did not know 

they were ahead 

if I'd learned to better read the road

I might have steered with confidence

and should I fear blinking

to wake with Alice's White King

or:

 hold my eyes closed?

the real terror is:

taking one slow breath

and peering past thought

to be aware...

   a moment, fully felt, is less than air

not even cold

but empty

another new project - novel

what did mary see in her rear view?
as a car passed
3 buses lined behind hers
green the closest, then blue; red the furthest, keeping pace
as a hawk wheeled ahead and the road curved left
engines singing barbershop with the brake and gas
the mobile university
out of dickinson
onto 94
toward billings