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for you i’d want
for you i’d wantthe early morning still blackfacedfrom the night before to enterin through the window upstage centerthe window that’s east facedor have the sun riseor have the morning light makean entrance into the day through that window with layersof makeup and powder on its face to brightenthe stage and with rouge and lipstick and…
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tell the physician
tell the physicianwho steps back to makeplace for the birthof another wintertell him the birth of the winter’s thaw on the childbed is the birth of thewinter’s freeze on the deathbed
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this isn’t the time for someone to hear
this isn’t the time for someone to heara voice from outside the house and wakesit up and rubthe waking into their eyes and stretchstand up from the mattress warmedby the sleeping hours and stepflip a switch on a wall and lightovernight windows time darkenedi bless you alone who heard a few minutes ago speakthe voice…
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tell her the exit
tell her the exitfrom eden was theentrance into winter
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there
thereon the green stage of that leaf that’sa thespian breath in the costume of a ladybug see itdon’t disturb it’sa breath in a costume too smallfor a pregnancy lookwith short legs the round boat of spots it wears is rowedslowly up the leaf watchi’ve watched costumes that colour and with spots like that paddled to…
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november came
november camecame when the last light of october glimmered to the bottom of the westthen went out fellover the appearance of the edgenovember camefilled the one roomedhusband who sleptthe nights on the bed beside herit filled him with a chill that shivered perimetersfilled him withbrittle as the thinice over puddlesthe bedsheet between themit never meltedit…
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i heard the hornblast and turned
i heard the horn blast and turnedsaw the cyclops- eye headlight burn from the dark to the westthought of the pacificand of salmonof b c and of tall trees on mountain slopesfloated through those wheat seas that flourishedon that monumental plainharvests carriedeastward in a series of moments that passedloudly unheard in the darkmoments that becamesomething…
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grandmother knows
grandmother knowshow the picker of plums becomes the orchardoh when the snowmelt was inside her for yearsand in him for years the melted snow floodedthe creeks in his veinsflooded the swollen streams in his arteriesoh she watched him go by the lane from the villageinto bloom among the plum treesand in the icicles that dripped…
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from the mantel where the ticking measures
from the mantel where the ticking measuresthe silence of right nowthis solitude will be measuredwith the clanging of the pendulum on the quarterhour on the half on the hour in synchronicityin perfect harmony with the church bellfrom the steeple in the graveyard’s nearby townwhich chimes the measure of a gopher’slife under a tombstone
Jake's Flea Market 