1.
Before this field blossomed
it was already scented
from fingers side by side
darkening the lines in your palm
the way glowing coals
once filled it with breasts
and everything nearby
was turned loose to warm the miles
the pebbles and stones brought back
pressed against her grave
–you heat the Earth with a blouse
that’s never leaving here.
2.
It had an echo –this rock
lost its hold, waits on the ground
as the need for pieces
knows all about what’s left
when the Earth is hollowed out
for the sound a gravestone makes
struck by the days, months
returning as winter :the same chorus
these dead are gathered to hear
be roused from that ancient lament
it sings as far as it can
word for word to find them.
3.
Before its first grave this hillside
was already showing signs
let its slope escape as darkness
mistake every embrace for dirt
though one arm more than the other
is always heavier, still circles down
bringing you closer the way rain
knows winter will come with snow
that was here before, bring you weights
till nothing moves, not the shadows
not the sun coming here to learn
about the cold, hear the evenings.
4.
Though you can’t tell them apart
your tears came back, marked the ground
the way leaves go unnamed to their death
as the need to follow one another
one breath at a time, face up
and after that the rain and warmer
̶ you weep with your collar open
make room for another grave
near a sea each night wider, further
no longer heard the way now and then
comes by to close the Earth
with buttons and sleeves and tighter.
5.
You open this jar the way each raindrop
breaks apart mid-air, stops telling time
when struck by another, head to head
as streams ̶ your hands stay wet
let you gather the hours that are not
the bottom stones mourners use
for water though this lid is still circling
where you listen for those nights
on the way back as the puddles
water makes when trying to breathe
into a place on its own and empty handed
the glass shatters all at once.
About the Author
