a poem
possess me quickly
like high spiced food
a flood
cold clear water
fire sweeping through
backdraft
like sex
like sudden illness
down with a fever
felled like a tree
white pine
ax murderer
like death
a stroke
massive heart attack
concentrate
stick and rub
under pressure
diamondeap
time is a wolf in a cave
a few beats away
from my heart’s twelve
where you will be blamed
because I was not found
your head
on my heart
stops
like a wolf
in its cave
you swore it was the last time
and so did I
we both swore
the last
time I said it’s forever
and you said it was
but we both knew
it was a wolf
in a cave
I want to know
will I move past your body
when you die
or will my own half-cells
die with you
when I was a girl
you told me time was forever
and still wolves found me
in dreams
when your teeth are gone
will they still eat me
or fall from your mouth
when you throw up the bones
will you leave them to me
or will you always need them
as weapons for wolves
and dreamseap
Male of Elizabeth
for my sons, and my grandson, not-yet-bornI wake in the morning
his voice in my body
a language I can’t follow
a crescendo, a leaky instrument
he was a boy with a voice
that betrayed him
a sharp blade
for an Adam’s apple and words
that hit the window like sleet
he left me remembering
the quiet thrum of rain
the day he was born
the blade that saved him
after a dive to grab his waving arms
I still tread
in that water and blood
of the child who was named
male of Elizabeth
the patchwork of our bodies
living, breathing
speaking broken languagesphoto by Sally Mann
What they see by the light of candles
I was the old woman
visible to neighbours
only in conversations
on front porches
at the ends of driveways
glancing back to my darkened house
where I watched them from windows
onto the world, unseen because you can’t see inside
when the lights are out
they wonder when there is no garbage
on Sunday night
nor on Monday morning when the trucks pass by
they ask if I’m alive in here
or so I imagine
I’ll be found one day
when someone follows a nose
to the body, disintegration
escaping cracks in the mortar
when they find me, they’ll understand
something about garbage
the heap beside my unmade bed
the heap on the dining room table
shit overflowing the litter box
electricity shut off months before
those unopened envelopes in my mailbox
I know what they’ll ask
when the money is found
under the mattress
no one wants to touch
defeat
how you can’t stop someone
intent on not meeting the neighbours
under any light but that cast by candles
waving shadows on the bedroom walleap
of a god and love
for Paul
July 9th, 2008
they cradled you into the car
wrapped in a white flannel blanket
a few last sprigs of red
hair feathered upward
before you left home
pale kisses
from your brother
missed your cheek
I left out my goodbye
crawled onto the rear seat
my books sliding to the floor
you shuddered, Mother shouted
rain, the bees coming in
could kill you
in arms that couldn’t clutch
you tight enough
I thought you were arguing
yourself alive
for just those moments
while I left you
the last things I remember:
your thin arms
reaching for me
and one long sound
a moan rising
was it me
watching from the sidewalk
as Father drove
you on?
alone, in your cortege
I remember
what we sang:
love
I’ll always love you
but enough of love now
eap
