I and II

1.

I see the fragile, missing aspect

like a vanished rib.

“These things can be

assuaged,

by long drive

by the estuary or

sequoia.”

The body of the beloved

is disrupted

by a rock cast on water.

It goes all wavy.

And we were not milkfed.

I was fed on plum brandy,

you on engine oil.

That we have gas in our tanks

to reach the coast

is boon enough.

That we grappled

to the last-

I’m so impressed-

so impressed by the unwavering stars,

the prevalence of field,

by all you’ve collected

beneath your fingernails.

I’m so impressed

by our earthly grace

in the face of hard time.

I hardly know how to put it-

I’ll stuff this in a cinnamon box,

and send it on its way.

2.

Sometimes all you know

are your quantitative fears,

stacked like a cairn.

Or you wake from a dream,

wildly loving

the face you found framed

by the snow

of sleep-

Sometimes you cry in the car.

And I dedicate this song to you, like

a bench with a name on it.

Hands decimated could rest now,

rest in the tidal pool of my dream,

almost as if home.

Mostly I don’t think of home,

because it carries on without me

but I lost it

and then noticed it was gone.

Softer times allow for gentler pains,

stung by nettles, stepped on a hive.

But you were caught on barbed wire,

stepped on knives.

We both of us have known the mine shaft

too well.

If a heart is a nautilus,

it makes me want things.

Long drives, drive

in a warm den of silence.

Spit memories into the west wind.