alegría

and then naked

sitting in the barber shop with men
while they whisper.
waiting
and over and over not shamed.

fussing over him as

he plumes, and

cooking for him and bathing him

as he veils mistresses in broad daylight   

and regarding

those mischievous spider monkeys

holding onto long vines of legend
and swinging through the bedroom


with ripe amusement.  laughing
as they tell dirty jokes to the dogs,
cackle and clown and
four beryl parrots fly halo around the spectacle.

volatile and obsessing,
hopeful despairing,
tussle and
flint.
seething

perfumed shivering,
soft mouth kissing 
flirt and 

seduce.
motion


this:
that exhale in crowds,
that nectar and tint.

cardinal scarlet.

whispers twist: 

she paints raw her template

of to be.

once

springing that shaft,  she
had come so sagging far:
from summery nightgowned mornings
sight of dew on the outside and
possessing steadfast belief in shine


to this smearged lipstick and eyes
matteward to a cobwebby self
she. to the she wanting stop wanting halt
wanting cease. punctuation and the end
of the sentence.  so

she kites she swims that stillcool air
dips in concrete collision
and choice. shattering        liquiding       smash
fluiding the bulge cold void.  her milky skeleton.
and now lightness
spill flush dark away. 

she would have been dazed
by the hot of her her. pooled nothing
begs at substance. she would have been
pleased
to have seen it. 

imperatives

sedulous hips.  she
was sinful
was    lush.    she
was darwin's daughter
with a concrete heart

wild storm    contiguous touch
sirensong lipshade and rare
blue sand
exotic and calling out. 

and for lapping. the lapping of
antique
of old waves.  and
there is no if

in this familiar
shore sand damped and
seafoam submerged
and that grain and that morph of her
swell.

see: these finely etched laws still
of be.

her gees bend quilt

for my friend, c.
(jan 1, 2003--april 1, 2011)

the tethered are
solemn.
dressed in grief and collapse

they fall into that mattress of
comfort        into that
cradle of rite
roman catholic and
heavy with incense
and wailing.

and the unbound is nowhere.

now are only breeze and
only sown flowers,
a pagan patchworking of jungleskein.
madness 
the fantastic    the improbable quiltcover for
this bed of ache. 

now the sun stopped
but still
the pink plumed astilbe
are grenadier guards
playing drum, blowing brass.
to mark the change.  and they

guard mutely and erect
that spark
and that flash,
that war making
sleep making poppy.
her morphine release
and her drift and dream
again

endly the radiation
is of the sonorous
of the sweeping and
sway and sway. 

of darwin's tulips in april
white bowing to absence,
white bowls slender throats.
white sugaring those necks 
that inspire the writing of songs.

stitched together here are
impossible things.
as impossible as
it is

and the
pink bellis   spider chrysanthemum   poison ivy
the lambs ear     hyacinth    stinging nettle  
the baby's breath    gladiola  forsythia   and bird of paradise
and no roses.    they live

like us.

so yes:

grow here.  
yes sagebrush,
yes
meat-eating   blade-jawed venus.
yes
dandelions
in perpetual wish state. 

borrowed mornings

chardonnay
and chocolate donuts.
move the cat and
feel the silent    the stillness of
morning and essing
curling backs
and that pillowed sighing
of please returns.

then slip
from clouded sheets
and arrive
again on solid bed

and desire and bare and urgent
pull close and close.
and again 

return

return, return,
again return
away.

My Atlas

Atlas,

when i found him,
resode in the least expected.
now upholding
these nevermeeting universes that are
absent of dust or webs and woven
of motion, and motion.

motion:

of he striding:  unbent
toward unseen
unshaken by
the wind
of the far far away.
he the quixotically the doggedly
the unabashed he.
he the pursuit of
intention.

he baking french toast and
holding separate and strokedsmootheskies,
up
discrete layers and layers,
up
alien worlds alien up,
he of plenty.
arms of concurrent and arms of
apart we
up and up
and upon his
only his
arms.
up

he cupping our separate everythings
the slight elephantine
the immeasurable protozoan
the orbs of us
holding in his clean hands
this dazzling concert
in which all of us are free
all of us are
able.

fingers scarred by paper slices
eyes of chameleon abyss.
mouth meant to kiss
and 

unaware Atlas
shingling
singling
my bringling

lifting me lifting me
up

our arcadia

it was not ordinary

in some garden nearby
between that supernova and a dirt road,
afternoons were spent exchanging peppermints
back and back again
across tongues.

sitting enclosed and cultivating unknown
openings, clinging and pressing
in that beguiling hothouse,
discrete. and favoring of these other sweet
hard blooms.

thinking or not:  in the far future
in that some other of space and of time,
will there be the shining of spider chrysanthemums
and will there be bright secrets like these.