truthfully, Beloved, i have only three languages:
one for childhood, one for love, and one for the deathbed.
they are interchangeable.

but my face is so used to neglect
that i have no mouth any more.  only my fingers
can speak-- and even then, they make no sound.

my hands can only heal or hear.
please
let these be the same.

my eyes have only sad
or beatific vision.
please alternate these reliably.

in some ways, i hope my love will
outlive me and turn up in the lines of your palms,
songs, jet trails in the sky.

with my bad eye, i can only hear
light and silhouette.  you used to speak my name,
but it has become ill-fit for use, ill-suited
to your mouth;

i have become your minor child now,
given up for adoption,
elapsed and nameless.   let me give
no more speeches to the speechless.

i am a woman dipped in wax and doused
in feathers and forget-me-nots.
yet i can't stop trying to record the undeniable
attempts to love and be loved

failure is not a deterrent

from the balcony in western massachusetts
the scarlet sun sets in its favorite blue hills
unfazed by the drizzle.
this hour in the brief beginning of twilight,

what shall i do? wash my long hair
and let it dry under the last warmth
of the sun; rest my head on
my arms' cradle as the wind
blows the black clouds over?

beyond my elbow
i can see stars, distant, unclear
above scrub pines bent
and deformed
by time's relentless weight,

and where the pines meet the sky,
i see a small boat at the edge of vision--
a boy lingers on the deck, soaks in
the last of the light...

is there a boat that doesn't veer towards heaven?
is there a heaven that doesn't yearn for its boats?

the wind fingers through my wet hair.
i realize i have been sleeping.

gulls wing over the sea in my dream

majestic though it is,

the great earth lacks the strength

to protect its children

its boulders thrown

from cloud-rimmed mountains,

tenuous, parched riverbeds,

footprints of ancient heroes,

dinosaurs, fern plants, long-gone,

flint with the fire of wisdom,

beauty,
history.

until the last bird
has fled the sky,
i shall go on writing
about sandcastles
seen in a dream
in a basket-like heart
containing memories of the ocean
overlaid with rays of twilight

i see you standing there, slender
as a bamboo spray, too transparent
for wind and rain..  everyone else
has gone home, dreading the dark
and cold. but you stay, standing alone
watching the winds turn the hills blue.
winds--they never blow too long.

winds fall, all haze vanishes,
leaving only the earth's beauty
and the clear sky,
and you, standing there,
your face just as it was before:
showing no fear, no grief, no joy,
but only a hint of sadness that summer is at hand.

the clouds dissolve, clear light filtered
through the stars
drips on your hair , drips on your tinge of sadness
winter and spring are both gone
brazen birdsongs flaunt the day
sunlight sparkles on the jeweled web of morning

and still, i see you standing there,
too transparent
for wind and rain.

night fades like an old bruise

the pages of the years open
like a bible;
swift calligraphy of desire,
requiems for forgetting...

there is a bookmark
where you used to be.

i don't know if i ever convinced you
that i was telling the truth, or
if you even cared

but why do i, like history, keep
returning for the wounded?
rose petals float
on the rainwater
in the birdbath, in the

book of lost entries
there are crossed out words
on haunted pages.

is this, then, what is left
of the dream of beauty?

but i still hope for days that are
soft at the edges,  hands closed
on wind-stunned leaves,
the abrasions of history

prophets of salvation

the night he left me
an unstained moon had
risen over the eastern ridge
simplifying the sleeping house,
plating sorrow to the
patina of freshly polished silver.

no time to mention
the loveliness of the moon

i needed to clean the ashes
out of the kitchen range, wanted
to sweep the balcony clean . instead
i ran to the window to watch
the tail lights dwindling away.

dust-laden, i wanted
to wash my hands.  but he left
and i stayed at the window
where i needed to be,
confused.

now ghost
people live with me
and use my hands to do their work.
the bedroom is where i go
when i cannot bear
the loneliness

and what shall i do now
with the loveliness of the moon?

yellow clouds approach
a blue darkness

my mind resists sleep
since i lost the star of my dreams

evening is reeling in the night
apart we shift into shapes of islands

if i could sleep, would i form
a boneless imprint in the night

in a graceful, steadfast motion
like a seashell coiled layer on layer

by a wave of prehistory

do you remember
anything about me
how the clouds came
and blurred a silent image
in the faint green light
a restless movement
that became a lens
magnifying an image
without light

a pebble
a pearl
words dripping through my fingers
without effervescence
like flat champagne
moments felled like trees

a shadow snagged on memory

it was an unexpected card. "this got me
to thinking of you, he said, true, it's Japanese
art, but much of the charmed life
is present. (by now, character of this sort
is rare.)  I've been rereading your old letters,
really poems in prose..."

the glimmering curls of his writing
are so much like ripples that you could almost
dip a net deep into the paper and pull up
the arching wet weight of a golden carp,
pulled to the surface by the creamy luster
of a paper moon while the edges of the ink blur

"It's puzzling to think that such incisive
and gentle observations seem to have been
totally forgotten-- we must keep alive
some of it--"

the lines have given him away. his palms
hold another story; a life of love
based on stardust and heat.  "I'll never
really know what threads hold my heart to you,
singing songs to you in holiday notes
(I always wanted to make love to you by candlelight)

my wife says hello.
love,
Bob"

at night two red candles
light my hair, and as i fall asleep
my heart and wings flutter
as i spread my arms
in a white silk gown--
a bird, sleeping in the air

dreaming into the wind
gathering sands and trees
and robins and roses

while a piano is
playing in an old-fashioned
drawing room.

i wake up like a terrier
snapping at sunlight.

there are many ways to get ready
for living: sit in a silent room
and rest the spirit,
melt like
snow in the sun;
while
molecules in the cell of Heaven
cling like cobwebs

to the soundless words
of my ancestors