but not an instrument. It has some weight.
I notice how the quilt is tucked as if the cradled shape
could drift apart like antler velvet. I’ve never held
a form precise as that, in bundled cloth
nor felt its pulse go zing against my hand, & then—
my hands feel warm. More truly weighted than before.
I glimpse a momentary face, a tiny zero snugged within
my elbow’s dark. I wrap the quilt. I keep
it close. All night, I try to count the hushed electrons
blooming in my brain. Whenever I dream of water
rippled leaves—the little face is sometimes there
& sometimes not, but here, or there, I almost say
I wish, then bite my lip to force it back. I sit up
like that for many nights, not knowing what I want
or don’t. In Como, once, alone, I ate a fish I let
the waiter serve me with two spoons. I read Fitzgerald
twice. I loped in long brown boots & cried & made up
songs about myself. From the red funicular above the town
I watched the women hang their slips to dry. I watched them lift
their silver coffee pots & call their boys in from the street.
How neat I said, & memorized their clinking plates. I tracked
the twilight smack of soccer balls, the sound of thunder
making promises across the lake. I’ll write this down I said
but that was all. I didn’t want it more than anything. I didn’t
think of mom or bride. I burned in my leather coat. I lied.
Prophecy
You have a good belly for twins. I can see you
at thirty weeks, your skin bright as automotive paint.
Rejoice, now: your life will be full of blessings.
Your twins wear little caps, little suits, on the bus.
They munch animal crackers under a striped shade.
See? You have a good belly for twins.
They’ll remember you best in your pink gown.
Your hair cinnamon-dark, brushing your waist.
Rejoice, now: your life will be full of blessings.
Arrange raw almonds in a dish with lemon & salt.
This is how you’ll be: whole, yielding. A planet.
You have a good belly for twins. I can see you
coming home to what you own. Your white
motorcar. Glass ornaments on the sills. Your twins
are such blessings. Rejoice, now, at your life
lined up like azaleas. Your life unfolding in air.
When will you take your turn at the spade?
I see you, twinned. But you have a good belly
for now. Rejoice in your blessings, you fool.
Confession
Every month I decide not to try
is a lungful of gold I can keep for myself.
Still, I worry you’ll come to me anyhow
& hitch your hiccuping bud. My dear
I don’t want to be got. I just want to get done
with this month. I decide not to try.
I decide on a wine. You keep spinning
through the woods on green stars of pollen.
Still, I worry you’ll come to me anyhow.
Your small breath troubles the flour
I’m spilling. Did you leave sweet jam on the sill?
Every month, I decide not to try
to find out. Late sun butters the glitz
in my guts. My dear, I’m already botched.
Still, I worry you’ll come to me anyhow.
Lately, I’ve dreamed of quilts stuffed
with bees; it’s a thing. Yet I don’t see
why I worry & worry. You come to me anyhow
every month I decide not to try.
The Child Was in the Woods
which woods pertained to glory. The Team
swept through, measuring the crinolines
of leaves. Humming in the woods, the child
slipped through blades of rain. Which rain
fell down in prayer again. The Team raised
shields against the acorn-glitz & swelling
bark. One knelt to track the beetle with its
carapace of sun. All this time, the child
was in the woods, her cells dividing
in medallions. She hummed & half her face
tangled in the trees, which trees were tongues
& yarns of fire. Still, the Team pressed on
through rows of violets crowned like crumbling
teeth, through glistered gaps the light licked
over. Anywhere a buttercup could fit, this kid
could be they hissed through slits of mics
that cracked & clung. The Team nodded
one by one. Even so, the child curled
deep in her rookery. There, she dreamed
of sitting in a painted room, a tiny chair
& table planted there. The child dreamed
of sitting in the tiny chair. She had to pluck
a harp with many strings. In her dream, she saw
two listeners: increments of ivory, bent
& silent at the door. I won’t be yours the child
sang No, not yours then woke with a scorch
in her throat in the woods. Now the Team withdrew
their robes & instruments. They patted the dark
shells of the trees. Sleep they said. But the child
rose without pause, rose without pause
from her perch in the woods, from the brawny
tawny woods, which realm was deep
& oil-dark: was glory.
Prospera
I had a daughter like a trench plate once
she lidded my loneliness just so
that was before I retired to my Milan
where now I slide my tongue across
my own gapped teeth in the dark but
when I had my daughter, my trench plate
I poured water & stars, water & stars
she dreamed in the cradle I dug in the mud
& I didn’t think of retiring to Milan
nor of losing my daughter to that dark
garnet of a husband & his talk
she was my trench plate daughter
& I hushed her to sleep all alone
in a language I drew from my own throat
but I’ve forgotten it here in Milan
where every third thought is my grave girl
waltzing in her wedding gown of wire
don’t you miss how you were mine once, O
my trench plate, in another Milan
Four
Nursery
We opened the door to the fairy house
& took our tea on matching pebble seats.
Somehow we got out of there alive
though something crystalline of us
remains in that dark, growing its facets.
We opened the door to the fairy house
at the oak’s black ankle. You asked
What could happen? as you disappeared
somehow. We got out of there alive
the strange tea still warm in our bellies.
Inside, our hosts gave damn few answers.
Who built that door? Is this a fairy house?
They had no faces yet. We spoke
into their quince-bud ears. You wept.
Somehow we got out of there alive
though we didn’t quite return. Our life
is different now we’ve drunk the tea.
They’re alive somehow. I got us out.
Why did you open the door to the fairy house?
Gräpple
Take the fond flesh of a pomme & haunt
it with food-grade chem: a grape soaking.
Nothing can go wrong with this plan.
Sometimes I worry my grandmama’s ghost
too hard at my fond flesh, the haunted pomme
I am, when I know what I am I ain’t enough
to make anyone linger. In the crisp, eerie light
nothing can go wrong with my plan
to stay here, on this side, & not call any spirit
into my bodily bruise, no starburst of cells
to haunt my fond flesh, round as a pomme.
Let my unhappy dead remain on their vines.
I’ll bike beneath with my empty blood-basket.
Nothing can go wrong with this plan.
But it’s hard to promise. Something still
considers me. Every night, I snarl myself
between a haunting & the fond flesh of a pomme.
It goes wrong. I start to plan.
Post-Apocalyptical
It happens at my desk: a gathering in. As if the room were a forehead graying at the lid. Even the light steps around & hovers just behind my eyes. I don’t have to read & anyway the words march neatly off my screen, back to their nest in the wall or under the Coke machine where they can curl around each other until called. This is my job: to wait for the sweetie feeling inside me to swell to the size of a flap-jack. I want to get hold of that same feeling inside another lifer. I mean the real sugar of it, roasted & packed like a warm thought. So I scrape my hair into a mess of woody stems. I chew & stare from my window over the roofs of the other world. Sometimes I see men in dark polo shirts pressing pistols to the bellies of passing choppers. Something happens but it doesn’t keep happening. This is a careful time.
Ought
We’ll have to hurry if we want to get started.
It’s high time to consider beginning at all.
Time, at least, to think about starting
to start. After all, we’ve only just gotten up
& running, but now? We’re almost too late.
We’ll have to hurry. If we want to get started
we’ll have to start now. We’ll have to work
round the clock, round the clock, round the—
Well. Let’s think about starting, at least. Though
it’s tougher than ever. We can’t even begin
to explain what it’s like. To start with, we know
we should want to hurry. At least, we’re starting
to want to. That’s almost too tough to say
at the start. Still, we’re sure we’ll begin any moment.
It’s time to get started we think. Let’s consider
getting up & running. By then, it’ll just sort of start
& we’ll have begun. Zut alors! It’s a plan & a party!
It’s just—we should hurry. If we want to get started
we better begin. But it’s tough. Just look at the time.
N/Ought
I must forgive myself for waiting so long.
I know a woman who waits is offensive
but I just can’t get over my flaws
& now they might zero me out. My blood
is a zone of dispute, a tropic of fault. Since
I’ve waited so long, I must forgive myself.
Only—somehow I can’t. My forgiveness snags
on my nexus of doubts. I know it’s my fault
but there’s no getting over the flaws
in my tropical blood, which may not carry on.
I don’t know what I want. That’s my offense.
But I must forgive myself for waiting so long
to decide. Does this prove I’m no good?
Because maybe I’m right on all counts … but
I just can’t get over it all. My flaws
glister. My heart is a springhouse of doubt.
Don’t blame me for not bellying up.
I’ve waited so long that I ought to forgive but
I just can’t get over myself. It’s a flaw!
Jantar Mantar
The king’s instruments burn my hands when I touch them. The king’s stairs burn my feet so I can’t climb up or down. The land is pink, black, or pink-black. It sharpens in the sun. The sign above the king says: Shimmy a path through my calculus. When I look down, the path curves away into slices of egg. Each slice has a number painted black to honor the sun’s penumbra & I’m crying as the slices vanish through a high arch. My stomach boils. Blood comes through my knee in gridded lines. Above me, dozens of pastel plinths romp in the yard. Some slide, huge as wedding cakes, some yawn like elephants over the white pellet of noon. The sun’s penumbra has divorced the sun. I know it suddenly. That’s why all colors have veins full of neon, why they must bleed to be seen. When I put my hand on a color, it feels animal-warm. I’m brushing the flank of a fine orange wall & tasting honey on my teeth when my life as the glass king begins.
The Temple at Govind Dev Ji
I’d like to go there once more
before I become a mother. I’d like to get
right up to the gates. Then, through—
I can believe at the absolute center.
Smoked air, running fountains.
I’d like to go there once more
& open my hands. Someone sings
at dawn in the sanctuary. I was there.
I walked right up to the gates. Then, through—
as though I deserved it. I took
off my shoes. I wore my garland
right up to the gates. Then, through—
& pronounced me good. Now I’m no mother
but I’d like to go there once more
& stand with the women. Saying the names
of belief. So many names I’d like to call out
once more, before I become another.
I’ll go there once more, then, through—
Scarlet
Long ago, I was a figlia with a fever.
Little filly, foaled in my dark star-bed
where I thought I’d die pretty soon.
Lying there, my fists held candy eggs
of logic, molten math. My pink death already
long ago. I was a figlia with a fever
& I doubled in the neck. My neck?
Rather my baton, spilling white glitter.
Pretty. I thought I’d die soon
& warp to World 8-4. I’d take
a running jump up broken orange steps
to find my long-ago figlia. My fever
thinner than her thin dress falling
past her tender baby-knees. I knew her.
I thought I’d die pretty soon
& leave the shadow of my rash
hot patch of strawberry skin for her to keep
from long ago. Dearest figlia, my fever
was so soon. Thought I’d die pretty.
Letter to Monticello
I must apologize for leaving my seat in the middle of your summit on social justice. I hadn’t meant to get up at all, but my headache finally forced me to twist past everyone else’s drawn-up knees & folded tote bags, my mouth looping Sorry, sorry. Can I tell you about this headache? Gray & narrow, a fog helmet. I staggered down to your Farm Store to buy a small jug of chilled coffee & some extra-large peanuts, which I ate, slowly, on a bench. From there, I heard the key-note poet declare that we should send only black women astronauts to Mars. You just know we’ll make do with whatever we find up there she said, her voice actually dimpling in a pleased way I’d never heard before. Your Farm Store caffeine entered my blood then, white stars dispersing. Did you know I gave up coffee last year? I turned thirty-six & thought Maybe I should try for a baby. Every month brought me closer to Mars, a planet ruled by black women astronauts. I can hardly talk about the headaches. Jefferson called peanuts peendars. He planted sixty-five hills of them in his garden once, or so it says on the back of the tin. I ended up not having a baby. But the peanuts! Quite tulip-shaped. Not like regular tulips, more like the old Turkish paintings where tulips first appear as chemical flames. I prefer them this way.
Purgatorio
I
only want what I can’t have
when my old terror stabs me in the neck.
The Lord teaches me to love without fear.
But I wake up in battledress, picking lice
off my collar. Hardtack. Heat lightning.
I only want what I can’t have.
When will I get my great morning of wrath?
When my white deer self comes down from the woods?
The Lord teaches me to love without fear
but I drop my rifle & quickstep away
from all the dark between us. Tell me again how
I only want what I can’t have?
Things must change. I must pray.
If rivers crested & forts collapsed, maybe then.
The Lord teaches me to love without fear.
When I dream of the future, I’m always alone.
Even now, something drags me with fear teeth.
I don’t know what I want. I only love
what I’m Lord of. Teach me, or else.
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank the editors of the following journals and anthologies, where versions of these poems have appeared:
River Styx, “Self-Portrait”
Spoon River Poetry Review, “Young”
PEN Poetry Series, “New South” (as “Memoir”), “This is How We
Feed the Animals,” “Elegy”
jubilat, “Contagion”
The Spectacle, “First Girdle”
Wave Composition, “Little Gals”
Pangyrus, “Pastoral”
Memorious, “Nocturne,” “Let Me Tell You People Something,”
“Why Don’t You Wear a Black Crepe Glove Embroidered in Gold,
Like the Hand That Bore a Falcon?”
Louisville Magazine, “Political Poem”
Tupelo Quarterly, “Afterlife”
Ploughshares blog, “Estival”
Los Angeles Review of Books, “Doubloon Oath”
Crazyhorse, “I Married a Horseman,” “Lament”
Grimoire, “The Child Was in the Woods,” “Witch Wife,” “Prospera”
The Journal, “Vigil”
Green Linden, “Prophecy,” “Confession”