hand:
It runs through my thighs, even now,
that you thought of it! for a little while we thought of nothing else. Frozen little couple in caps, frozen beaks—
Happiness (3)
The moment you turned to me on W 4th St.
Your gentleness to me
The hard winter grass here under my shoes
The frost
I knelt in the frost to your parents
The warm
light on the right hand side of your face
The light on the Buddha's eyelids
I knelt to my parents
Their suffering How
much sleep there was in sleep How no
suffering is lost
Letter
The hornet holds on to the curtain, winter
sleep. Rubs her legs. Climbs the curtain.
Behind her the cedars sleep lightly,
like guests. But I am the guest.
The ghost cars climb the ghost highway. Even my hand
over the page adds to the ‘room tone': the little
constant wind. The effort of becoming. These words
are my life. The effort of loving the un-become. To make the suffering
visible. The un-become love: What we
lost, a leaf, what we cherish, a leaf.
One leaf of grass. I'm sending you this seed-pod,
this red ribbon, my tongue,
these two red ribbons, my mouth, my other mouth,
—but the other world—blindly I guzzle
the swimming milk of its seed field flower—
I could never let go
my husband
my wound
my sleep
but they were surrendered from me
my books them
pleasing you/
disappointing you
the desire for men
gazing
feeding
the cursive characters
I my you
in chalk across
the white-lined blackboard
surrendered from me
when I couldn't breathe so.
The Basket House
The basket house:
to shelter me
inside the night cave
the emptiness
where the other one holds me
nurses me
in the emptiness,
holds me the way
paper made out of a tree
holds a deer.
And he holds me near:
he pulls the cord
out from me, in to him,
length over length.
The House and the World
All this anger
heart beating
unless I'd come inside
your blind window
and stay there like you
But then
the other world
was going to be given:
the cello part
carrying us the whole time
like earth the scarred hip
tipped groin
the flying whitethorn hedge
the cup
In your eyes
In your eyes
there was a little pupil
a woman
turned to
a holy well
notes and snapshots pinned to her dress
at her feet
crutches eyeglasses
Woman, Leaving
You waited 4 Ever
Don't listen for words here
no more than the words the grass speaks or
the mouth of the lake
Then came
an undone stitch of light
You tore it
open and flew
Trim my hoofs
Trim my hoofs!
I am thirsty for experience.
The
