in the dirt.
Beg Song
. . where geometry borders on dream, and where the duende wears a muse’s mask for the eternal punishment of the great king.
—Federico Garcia Lorca
Foolhearted mindreader,
help us see how
the heart begs,
how fangs of opprobrium
possess our eyes. Truth
serum: how the index finger works
up into love, how the greased hand
slides up the wombholler of madness
& rebirth, whispering:
Look, back of the eyes. Each
gazes into its fish heart, final mirror
of beauty & monkeyshine.
Run your tongue along
fear in the frontal lobe.
Introduce us to that crazy man
with his face buried
in your hands.
In the slack bed, meat
falls through the door
of itself. Soul of a lamp.
Slipshod genius, show us
the cutworm’s silly heart,
how the telescopic love-eye
probes back to its genesis.
Death Threat Note
Dear Poetry Editor,
why did it have to
come to this?
Walk out any door
& you will never know.
Turn any doorknob
& open a butcher shop.
The chair rocks by itself.
A cat paces the windowsill;
the moon’s followed you home.
Another set of footprints
surfaces in new snow.
At any moment
a steel door slams
& locks a man in an icehouse.
I see Weldon Kees’ car
parked on the Golden Gate Bridge.
I’ve fallen in love
with a woman’s hands
on deathrow. Listen, a knife
can heal your mouth.
It’s no good to fall
pointing to the North Star,
moaning foxfire.
The meat wagon
runs off the road.
I don’t give warnings.
Child Stealer
You grin like a grape
peels open. One more step
& you will find yourself
lost in a room—
ten colors from floor
to ceiling in the old house
near the boxwood grove.
Let me kiss a tattoo
on your forehead.
You will come to love
this place where sunsets
hang red lanterns
in the windows.
For them to take you now,
will take nothing
short of death.
They say something’s wrong
with me upstairs,
& their eyes stare me down.
Torches in trees creep forward.
A Poet Whose Photo Never Grows Old
Snow is a white horse
around the bends of oaks
again. Someone you loved
now rocks herself
asleep in the ground.
The young coed curled
against you like a rainbow,
blood of a new season
connected to a distant land.
Your eyes were once lethal
in a way you’ve seen nightbirds
erase shadows & burn
a slow flame of songs,
the way you’ve seen a goddess
stooped over an old machine
whining like a violin—
what you call “these small miracles,”
the way you’ve seen roses released
from manure in a field.
Poetics
Beauty, I’ve seen you
pressed hard against the windowpane.
But the ugliness was unsolved
in the heart & mouth.
I’ve seen
