new poems for a new decade.

Notes on Hibernation



There are certain cells

that are quiet as cats, laying down

their small curvatures of course dark decrescendos

arcing across the landscapes of my body.



Transformation!

Let us lift up our hands

(which are merely the delicate evolution of leaves)

and laud the great silence. Let us spread our toes

and ease our roots, craggling into the frostbitten concrete,

seeking heat, that steam that once lay so heavy on our shoulders.

(how soon we forget,

the thick ropes of summer).



Once or twice,

When I waited for death to notice me,

I made brief acquaintance with the frozen lake.

I saw it in a series of mirrors, obscured

by the dashboard and wisps of smoke

from my grandfather’s brand of cigarette.

My reflection did not surface

and no answer awaited me ashore.

(such a luxury

to expect the fleecy sheets of sympathy.

such indulgence

to think that those chemicals squatting in my blood

were to make a home of me.)



You are not what you were,

little sister,

little self.




The Moon and the Sailor’s Wife



How natural, it seems,

in our youth, to bear our throats

to the splendid jaws of love.

How logical

to lay our hands on the thorn of a stem

so that we might retrieve it’s bloom.

How practical,

to call the names of old gods into our mirrors

and watch for wisps of vengeful shades,

whispering prayers, blundering through

bygone incantations.



I have been charting

the slow exhibitions and censorships of the moon.

She choose orange for her debut.

(What was she thinking?

What was I expecting?)



I would not compare you to a sailor, Stewart,

but you wander like one.

You curse like one.

You have been known to taste of salt and clove oranges.

Your hands, your stocky fingers,

Ten suspects of indulgence,

align themselves across keys

which fluoresce for you, just

for you.



I want to yearn for you

like an old sea hag.

I want to twist my stomach into nautical knots and bows

until your return, frayed satin

on the attic floor.




the fleet



each month, another poem:

the envelope sealed and sent through

this tube

or that.



they are a litter of sea turtles, stumbling toward

the rabid maw of the tide.

they are moon worshippers, the bald ascetics,

a crop of virgins led to sacrifice,

a thousand others wait in the harbors

to unfurl their sails.



my womb must be

the edge of the world,

that little sailor,

that lonely Magellan

topples off the edge



into such a coppery sea.

What a swamp of tangled roots.



It is loosed,

deposited,

set adrift



it must seem to some

a graveyard, an ocean

of ghosts that were never living long enough

for a fleet of mourners.



(this is what aches.)