Solitaire

When you don’t know the meaning
Of each moment anymore,
Of the words that are leaning

Away from your lips, so sore
From the efforts of speech, vain
As grace sometimes seems to be,

All that remains of the pain
The faintest twinge, a ruby
Buried so far beneath stone,

Layers of boredom, of rage
Mute as a desert-bleached bone—
White letters on a black page.

The Black Dog Circles Once, Then Settles

The clouds cling to the horizon,
their fingers clutching like love
the sharp edge of the new day.
They mean to do us harm.

The female cardinal, dun and wan,
perches alone on the high wire line.
Across the alley, the bright male
twitters blindly through the sycamore.

Which way does the water
circle the drain? Where am I?
Could this lancing ache in my leg
be that sudden and very last throb?

Whatever gods ignore our prayers
shuffle through their eternities,
ancient mouths wrinkled and red
with the blood of vain praise.

Being Here Now

My tongue awoke to chocolate,
teeth tingling in the sunlight,
the nets of the new day sagging
under so many possibilities.

Your hair smells like chocolate
and rinses red in the sunlight,
and who can say what magic
lingers in my senses?

I’m most alive the moment
I awake to find my death
has yet to discover me,
hiding in such lush beauty.

On Avoiding Symbolism

After we’d made love,
I tore through the tangle
We’d left at the foot
Of the bed to find
My two necklaces,
Hopelessly intertwined
As we had been—
The black dove of peace
From Chartres Cathedral,
The silver Celtic cross
I’d bought that summer
In Glastonbury—
At each other’s throats,
Thick cords binding
Ebon wings, shining arms,
Locked in an embrace
That could mean
Almost anything.

Three Weeks Before the Beginning of Summer

Because this morning sky stared strangely upon me.
Because for me the birds no longer sing

(In fact, they avoid my presence, fluster
Away as I wander near their sullen perches).

Because these buildings hold their redbrick breaths
Whenever I, evicted, touch their silent stone.

Because the ground grows vaguely insolent beneath my feet
(I’m certain I heard a fuzzy snickering).

Because the dirty, still-empty pool
Threw the ripped-up calendar in my face.

Because the clothes go round and round
In a nervous sort of tumble.

Because this wall is yellow, as is my shirt,
But I haven’t seen the sun for years.

Because all your houses have come adrift,
Ballooning into the cloudy, sudden noon,

Stringing their plumbing and wires beneath,
Shadows of nerves, of fierce and former lives.