Laying Love Down and Paying My Tithe

But one more waking from a distracting headache

and the distracting ache of guilt, the overwhelming colors

of need, the headache of logistics descending

like rain over new-shorn hair, so short

because I have the eyes and am on the inside like

an infant. New and new to everything.

Lost and lost to the past: I ran away. I was like

an animal in that way, in how I ran, and I have thrown away

photographs for the stifling disservice they do this

Current Moment.

Love me for this shivering jelly or don’t.

I will not care very much as I run away. Richly,

I consider the aspects of my body and

the way they touch other bodies: sometimes.

I’m a bergamot or a pomander or some heavy

bowed flower,

laying love down and paying my tithe.

And there is a difference between lying

and being wrong. I’ve been wrong and

wrong as I was wronged, I’ve even been right

and found in hindsight I was not. I have loved

the crown of hair, the head in the lap, the face

between knees, the little polyester slip,

I’ve baked cookies, made madeleines with

delicate orange, the fantasy of crawling away,

I’ve been pulled back by the hinge of my high-heel.

Skin has lain before me like a country mile.

I’ll undress you and dress you up

in vapor. (How much can language conjure?)

I’ll leave and leave a small space in my wake.

(It can be a face between the knees.)

I’m not frightened, not trying to talk about

water- not trying to talk about time.

I am laying love down like a laminated

card, with a heart,

like a quilt, like a dollar

I am paying my tithe