today, this
is forgiveness:
the running tap
urging into warm the face
cloth and all along
the edges of the jar
of honey all along the ridges
the sticky drip of the last
time it's waiting to be
lifted to be warmed without
need to be scrubbed
kindly rubbed
of the slightest of any
thing but redeemed
and still just
as sweet
From Sleep
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale, nor discarded.
Walt Whitman
I imagine you
are sleeping I imagine you are
waking I imagine
you are muscled as muscled as any
cephalopod urgently called
forward along the bottoms of small
foreign spots: now glassless (I
imagine the pressure, don't you?) port
-holes key discretely re
-maining and all the sea
easing in and out as freely
as sleep. Tucked each and all
in our own houses of skin
our leg muscle seizes
we reach to relieve
to press and knead
(see: beneath the femur
a liberated fibula)
above our feet that in
our sleep as in our day
lays straight and stays
our standing straight
I imagine you
waking and taking
the heal of your hand
to your stiff calf (mass
age) (mass
age)
squeezing sleep
easing, after being beneath...or please
let me.
key/door
Facts are only
as interesting
as the possibilities
they open up to
the imagination.
Rebecca Elson
the key is in the lock
the knob appears
octagonal. and it is
glass. and i wonder
do you
know which one
will you grasp?
and i wonder
do you know
if you will turn it
and I wonder
in which way?
Remembering Starlings
Perhaps we project on to starlings
that which we deplore in ourselves:
our numbers, our aggression, our
greed, and our cruelty. Like starlings,
we are taking over the world.
Terry Tempest Williams
Refuge
In particular this winter I miss
the birds their songs their extended
chests and lessons blend
calm and caution. Mostly
growing up I slept
in the north
bedroom and mostly the bed
kept to the corner and some springs
the starlings would nest
in the eaves in the coming away places
maybe three paces from my face. They made
joyous noise they became a palm
sized Prometheus each of them seizing us
from then sprung from winter. I wanted to be
awake next to them not only for their flight
but also they told me (or so
I wanted to imagine) the rats
had fled for good and forever at least
until the second coming
of the cold. Between the load bearing
wall and the outside
world and all throughout the fall
and winter they would scratch
and chew and I just knew they could dig
through and would
swarm and nights I wouldn't
sleep nights I would pound the wall and send them
briefly scattering. And by spring
starlings and they made a better noise.
Rather than patch the hole
those birds were attracted to my father
stood beneath my window
and shot at the pair of parents
one by one when they flew
in and out of feeding
their young. I woke one early
morning to the sound of gun
-fire: pop pop small furies
and the agitation and maybe the way
they would swoop down to him
and away from him and he'd shake
them off and laugh and eventually
he'd aim and they both were dead or maybe
today I'd say all three were
and eventually the babies too
starving to death their song
hungry hungry hungry
i listed to on the other side
of the wall until all
like the stopping of a faucet or
the deep interior of winter
was drip drip drip drip dripless quiet
repair n
†3. Scottish. Temporary residence, esp. in a place or among others. (obsolete)
4. A place to which a person (or animal) goes or travels, esp. habitually or frequently; a dwelling place, an abode; a usual meeting place, a haunt.
OED
my ignorance i'll say touch
is a hot cup
of coffee just poured
(for years i've been warming
the mug first especially
in februarys marches and even
through august though i don't
skip the other months either)
before this morning's first
sip and diamond's been donned
again and the body is
loose even knowing
the cup changes i've been considering
how love can be lichened
to a just
poured cup of coffee
and how all i want
right now is to wrap my two hands
around it and let them be
warm again let myself in
shockingly at first and then
(without withdrawing)
gradually if its too soon to come to
my mouth on the lip of this
gift shut in the cupboard dark
all night after the wash yes let myself
hold it long enough to burn
a little to know it's almost time:
(before it gets too cold)
(though knowing can depend on
how cold (sorry will carlos)
it is in this heater on wool blanket shawled
lip to the rim breath caught listen
feel it i'll breathe out do you feel it?
There's the daisy: white petals
And a plush yellow center
And so we begin
Our anxious interrogation
Gregory Orr
Concerning the Book That Is The Body of the Beloved
It was one thing to pluck
every petal out of the yellow yolk
of the daisy's eye, the game
went this way and that and if you weren't right
bored with yourself you'd give in
and try: try not to tear the petal in
half so part's pinched in your finger
and thumb and part's still
stuck on living. All those skedaddled
loves and loves not are limp
and some come under the boot
and some are clung to the elbow
or center of your chest where else
would they lay finally and forever
abandoned. the least
favorite part of the game was thumbing
up under the coveted
center of the yell-
ow eye and letting as much
of its entirety fall into the palm
of your hand trying
not to listen to it tear away. It was glistening
with its own coming undone and all
the little bits some scattered some in a clump
were being judged. Hold yourself completely
flat. Steady. Then
Blow.
Blow hard. One two three because your life
will never be
the same however many remained. The count
some days eight some days none but most
days too many to want to count
at all meant that was how many kids
you'd have whether he loved you
whether he didn't love you whether
the petal that tore in
half was if you didn't cheat the last
he does he does not and you wished
it didn't mean anything didn't mean
he'd be dead that summer or the next or just up
and gone for good and the yolky
stain he thumbed inside
of you starting to dry because he said it would he
promised as the petals scattered some
some on the belt buckle some
on the zipper lifting when the breeze
if the breeze comes up.
