coq au vin

later, at night, sucking a peppercorn from my tooth
i will think of you, coq au vin, no one will ever know,

the boat in monet's garden, the greeny photograph that hangs in
my sister's kitchen. she called me from paris, she was 18, she said
i puked in the subway and was somehow pleased or proud
and so was i.

i will think of going for a walk, think of going.
but i will meet a hunter who will show me the silhouette
of a partridge in a tree on the way home
and i will stay.

in the dripping blue flashes of the evening
i see you coming.

today i have lived a whole life
important, full of strangers, working on something

If Not For The Fingerling Potato, then

Baby, baby, baby
aromatic and secret, the mole under your right arm
that sticks out like a mollusk,
a pencil drawing of a mollusk.

Baby, baby, baby
the boxcar in the copse of birch off highway 91
disappeared and I drive my car into a different frozen pond
every night: it's the only place I can’t touch me.

Baby, baby, baby
I am writing about you, and
there are ghosts and they make me shake
taste sour and fried, spongy like webs.

Baby, baby, baby
there are snakes in the geraniums
hair and soap in the sink drains
spiders in the lamb feast I fed to bad swans.

I am making sauce
I am pouring it on the stack of books
you lent me, you hate me, you fucked me
like a snake in a bag eating itself:

Amulets of jade cascade…
Into fire went the spade
out it came filled with jade
cooling, it laments and fades
don’t call me anymore
and read me poems
it’s giving me cancer
and I hate slant rhymes.

Promising Separation

there is nothing to be done about the ending of anything but,
mountain, no mountain, mountain
it hurts to see you change your status
to see that the candle, the cider, the flame are the same color.
the new wood is too wet for burning
this new light too atmospheric to walk out into
if only the smoke would stop lingering in the cedar trees
reminiscent of silent movie scenes.

the daylight and the moonlight are the same
they breathe the same breath onto the single paned windows
onto the cheap lacquered palms of photocopied saints
promising grapes, promising fish, promising the separation
of night and day, want and distance.

the dulcimer chimes in the attic without being touched
it is still beautiful, breaking or speaking, self-animate.

the moon wishes for a kimono of floral print
to wear on cold nights without clouds
when will the light stop fading
the wax is tired and upsetting the paper.

tempranillo

he's not coming
it is good to have wine
with a reseal-able cap
it is good to have wine.

the candles are not wasted, please
do not think they are wasted
but really, maybe you should save them
mother would say,'daughter, candles are for burning,
there are more at the store.'

suddenly the blue moonlight in the snow
reminds you of what is gone
and that he isn't coming
and that is is okay because the fennel is dry
and the wine will still taste good tomorrow.

monday august 30th 2010

you asked me how the horses fomenting on ground apples
I said grass-sick gorging on ground apples
she said sleep I said
before the late moon rises

the melodies were too saccharine last night
anemic in the fog rose the voices of lateness
hard binging twang folks riding chiffon fog
harpooning it with fire licks and nails

ricochet. St. peter’s chain mail on display
live on webcam, though it hardly moves
on its days off. What feast can honor the
chains of a saint? murcurial lamb, hard iron wine?

I am alone like the way I think about Cuba
like a rare species of lily pad floating
fomenting, bee-less in a comb of speeches
so thick you need a field guide to Castro’s uniform, thick.

Trickle of Missed Honey

I started a fire from posters ripped from telephone poles:
Lost puppy(call him Cerberus), Jesus Saves, small barbaric child for sale,
8X11 sheets rumpling into flame like the final image of Eurydice
sucked and tunneling back down into Hell.

I set mouse traps by the sink, the oven, in the empty cupboards.
What could they possibly want from this empty place?
A trickle of missed honey, a grain of cocoa, one caraway seed.

Yellow beech leaves dance horribly outside in the smokey rain.
Dancing as if to laugh and torture the cedar boughs who stoically
accept them into their long-fingered webs, aromatic and soft.

You didn’t look back for me. I had already made it up the mine shaft.
But maybe that is our tragedy, you knew I would come.
You could feel the electric breath on your spine,
you played the tambourine beat the drum of a happy war.

Cowering, covered in soot, believing in anything bigger than me,
I wrapped a finger around your hungry talisman that bustled
And wagged in the wind that was always in your favor.

All these holes. Even failure fades out,
is eaten by the romance of time, turns to dust,
slips from your hands in strong gales.

The cadence of breath on flames makes a hollow song in the morning.
Some things are making me sick: heat, wood smoke creeping by
an open window, blighted tomatoes, torn bellows,
a pair of cracked leather gloves.

My regret is never having made you something beautiful.
Something to impress the unimpressible.
A grove of engraved trilithons laden with hand-woven silk tapestries
shouldered in by great women who offer rosehips,
cocoa, tobacco, orchids, peacocks, saffron.

My coffee is thick with grit and I remember how
I would wake up to your mouth on my ear.
Wishing now that I could spin that roving
breath into a fine warp, weave us a fine new sheet,
one we’d never get out of,
not even for coffee.

INSOMNIA by Bei Dao

you see yourself outside your window
a lifetime's gleam in flux

gone blind out of jealousy
stars sail against the wind
beyond death's metaphor
and unfold ethical landscapes

in what is called a place of wellsprings
night finally catches up to you
that army of insomnia
salutes the flag of solitude

a nightwatchman tossing and turning
lights up that terror-blossom
a cat leaps into endless night
the dream's tail flashing once