Eclipse

There were two suns that day--
that last day.
We each had two shadows, as if we had met ourselves,
and were standing between ourselves, deciding.

We were drawn to each other but couldn't move,
caught between ourselves as we were.
People looked through smoked glass, pointed at the sky, went blind.

They say that all cats are gray in the dark
and that no lie stands the light of day.
The center line markers look like ones
as I drive away from you now, whole, corporeal, but longing for shadows.

Apple On The Sill

My window at night
fills itself with breeze.
A halved apple remembers its old love,
and the white blossoms thick on the trees.

Over the graveyard, the tile roofs, the fields,
come the reaper, the mother, the breeze.
It is late, the ghosts sing madrigals
for the priest in the church on his knees.

My window at night
fills itself with breeze
in the form of black plumed horses
saying, "Come, flor blanca, please."
_______

for this, in honor of the Day of the Dead, and Federico Garcia Lorca

Lucid

Lucid for the first time in months,
the morning came to me with wet feet from the long grass 
whispering and praying as it always does.

I spoke to it with a wind chime--
it came in, and the biscuits rose by themselves.
"I have coffee," I said. 
"I have me, and a bed made from oak wood and blackbird vines."

Years of waste and winter listened in silent silhouette
as morning spun me a shawl from itself.
Wishing my body into the city where I used to live,
the sight of me struck blind every faker out to get what they could get.

"There she is," they all say, even still,
as eyes turn to milk and milk turns to dust.
"There she is, morning's darling,
the crone who thinks she's beautiful, red hair graying, gone to rust."
__________

for this.

Expression

It's a long way to my face, so keep talking--
I'll get there.

Enjoy your steak.
I'm navigating by sonar.
I hear your voice like I'm underwater.

yes, yes
nod 
put another nickel in, I'll flirt.

Down in my bones there's a voice rattling around.
I live for your expression
if I ever find it.
_____

a 55 for this.

The Whales of Detroit

Ask anybody at a bus stop or down by the river--
there aren't any whales in Detroit.

It's lies.

I hear them all the time.
On Woodward Avenue, whales.
At John King books, whales down every row of shelves.
At the Old Mariners' Church, whales in the bells.

You are so thin, so sad.
I look at the great scarred heads of the whales and think of you.
In the aging overhanging trees beside the crack houses, whales. 
Under the 8 Mile Road overpass, whole pods of whales.
In your eyes, the sea
and the coiled rope of our pasts which holds the harpoon. 

There are whales in Detroit.
There is me, with my long hair tucked inside the collar of my pea coat.
From my hair I hear the waves.
There is you, outside a pawn shop between Hubbell and Greenfield,
giving the monkey a Nantucket sleigh ride. 
There is salt spray on my face,
and you, far out on the horizon, spyhopping,
then nodding for the deeps like all the rest--the whales of Detroit. 
_______

for this.

Fever

The day was struck with fever.
There were no nurses.
Sidewalks were poured by crews
working with concrete, confabulation, and implied threat.

Down each remembered hallway stood a constable.
The day weaved on its feet.
Children brought the sun in a wagon,
and all things answered to a nearby cat with yellow eyes.

A woman with red hair tried to bandage the scent of autumn.
A military band dispersed.
"Sell me your fever," I said to the day, the fading day,
imagining myself with it under my arm in a box,

like a pet, or an extra head, a gift for the indifferent storekeepers.
_______

Matters Of Convenience

"gravity
I'm telling you where it is
gravity"

--Rickie Lee Jones

Gravity as a matter of convenience
forestalls random movement, chaos.
Gravity keeps your nerd glasses (which I love) on your face
unless I reach out with light fingertips
to replace them
with my lips.

Gravity and emotion intersect at inconstancy.
If you need magnet boots to keep you here,
go barefoot. There's the door.
If I need the sound of your voice to weaken my knees,
I'm listening. There's the sky.

Gravity. Tides. The moon.
Space chatter.
Mass. Density. Orbits.
All these are matters of convenience
forestalling tomorrow when you might not be here,
or you are, but someone else appears as well.
"Where are you? you ask,
amused at my occasional departures.
"Right here," I say, feeling the spin of us, the earth, everything,
and gravity keeping us steady
from one moment into the next, like gyroscopes.
_________

for this.