broken bird-feeder on the branch above herits roof an inverted V without any floor
uncradle rocking
In the Visiting Area:
rocking:
not touching
The grain of the wood
The grain of the wood
tidemarks on the beach
galaxies
fingerprints
The spark inside my ribcage
leaping at your voice
under my skin and away in the knuckley powder…
The push or fly
The push or fly of the snow
here in the free woods
Your letter last night
—lost eight weeks in the prison anthrax rules—
and who knows what push/fly
at Avenal—
“…mostly freezing weather
and they don't give you anything warm to wear…”
at Avenal,
if I could,
I would nurse you…as I have,
as you have me, spring weather.
I would be
I would be thick soft fleece
around your shoulders
your ill heart at Avenal
a circle around your head
quiet against the noise, shade from the lights
Avalon
Avalon,
isle of the dead, in the west, where heroes go
after they die—
Avenal
where do your young men go?
hot coal in no one's mouth, dying day by day
to Avenal—
Do you remember?
Do you remember? my mouth black and blue
from your starved mouth—
I didn't know anything. I didn't know I was from
the way life was before…your fire skin
soft as a horse's black muzzle,
soft, soft black hair
of love, white hair on your head
—Now they have muzzled you.
That life, we couldn't stop, the sun went down,
spring snow was coming was coming
Advent Calendar
In the tiny window for December 21st,
the shortest day,
a little soldier, puppet on a stick,
or is the stick his sword? He looks quite gay.
Out my window, the woods: terrarium:
I put bread on the snow there yesterday,
but no one has come to eat it. It has frozen.
(Easy for them to follow was the child's way.)
Love they could never put you on a stick.
They could kill you in their prison
but they could never have you.
They can do anything.
We didn't know each other
We didn't know each other,
only what we ourselves hardly knew,
though they hurt us, every breath,
the holes in our sides,
though they were invisible,
underground rivers, caves—
Touch with your finger
Touch with your finger
the left side of my chest I hunch to protect
the side that holds like a womb your walking
your walking over to us
at our plastic table in the Visiting Area
your hair cut, your chest caved in, your face caved in, your covered-over
silence.
Noon in the Line Outside
The pretty woman with a prisoner number, CDCP *****, written in
ballpoint on the palm of her hand. “You have to give them the
number.” “You can't bring anything inside.” “I'll hold your
place in the line while you go back to the car.” Her clear
plastic pocketbook full of quarters for the vending machines inside.
“It has to be clear plastic.” “You're allowed $30. in quarters.”
I find his number, with the prison pen I write it on the palm of my hand.
Inside
Your red eye—
soap, you said
—injury?
and the darkness
around
