Words

Take these words:
they’re all I have to give.
If I wait for their unfolding,
I’m lost in the flood of quicksilver,
motive drowning in fulfillment —
too much satiation, too much matter,
and my mouth falls dry —
but words satisfy quietly
a distance from object you can’t hold
or let go of —

so take these words —
we can survive on them for years,
dreaming in their shadows,
dancing on their bones,
sucking them like bright candies
on a long highway ride…

Symbiote

…An umbilicus connects us.
Not a silver thread,
but a twisted life-stem
wrapping around us,
pulsing with our conjoined blood.

We’ve traveled so far
from the city of the ordinary.
I let you carry me
tucked in your pocket,
hidden inside your blueprints,
wrapped around your little finger.

I’m going to be your banyan tree
in the darkest forests
of your cerebral cortex…

Solstice Stillpoint

This is the stillpoint of solstice:
late June, evening. The milltown river,
with its floating candles flickering
as an orange twilight falls.

In this newly minted summer,
porches commune with their rocking chairs
and sunsets unfurl slowly.

My inventory of the longest day
reveals a stasis of bliss
settling inside my core
like a reservoir
when hope is complete:…

Letter to My Daughter

I’m sorry for all the things I taught you
when I was still learning to be myself.

I’m sorry for all you learned inside me,
the monologues I baptized your splitting cells with
on long walks home from the train
after working on my feet all day
or on the way to the laundromat,
pushing the cart over packed snow—
at the sink, on my knees, at the stove,
hanging the rags to dry; and finally, in dreams—
once I felt I’d earned the right to sleep.

I’m sorry for the way I said it was,
the things I said we do for love.
I said it like a prayer, while getting him tea
in the hours I didn’t need to be awake in.
This is how we love…

Chalk Circle

…There is no disgrace
in surrendering
to passion
as long as you remember
to plan it:
with a steady conscience,
cast your libations
to quench the thirsty dead
and honor the thousand invisibles:

you must always remember
the thousand demons that sneak
into the unseen midst
between eyes and electric brain,
knotted knuckle-fists
and through the gaps
between
 your thousand wandering kisses
erupting in violets
over skin’s borderless terrain,
blooming from a thousand open pores—…

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