Reckless

Bring them home,
all of them.

Let my heart swell
making room, for every one.
Break it open like the empty cup it is.
Let the raw parts show,
bright as bone. The many things
you love die many times, ways.

What happened was
in the winter I let them in
nothing else mattered.
I wanted them to be warm,
while they're here. Little
I can do, while we wait
for the spring, the pain.

[From the Files]

In a dream, I ravaged you
I knew it was you, in that sure way
you know things in dreams, I knew where to find you
like the right eyes look at an x-ray
I held it up to the light and knew
what your body meant
the secret sentence under
the skin, my hands searching
you through, slipping you notes.

improvise

Now I'm old
I think about all the ways
all the lack of ways we have
to slow dance

Rambled Eggs [on Life]

I keep saying life is short
'it's the longest thing there is,' she said,
(I don't care where she stole it from)

The thing is, my life doesn't feel
like 'my life,' this,
I don't know what it is, something that's happening.
I feel the past here, sketching it all out sometimes.
My people, haunting me, on the one hand, with their
frank, short lives, full of mothers, city laundry, garlic and heat,
and on the other,
frank, long, smoky lives, overcast days in the bog, the fire---

This life is 'wild and precious,' yes, but does not feel either,
somehow blunted in the way an overused knife is, or a cheap one.
[I meant it when I said I wanted the smoke to fill my lungs,
a warm dark, letting it in, like the ragged coo of a blues song
making its way through your body, it's what happens
when breathing dark feels more natural than air]

Warmth is enough, work so hard
be with the ones you love 'til you can't
anymore, that's how it was. How it is.
And when death comes for them, put on the black,
wait for your day in the sun. Or maybe just drink and drink,
and remember.  Who is to say whether or not we should

and what is this body

they say time is a flowing river:
the moment you can say 'this, this'
of a glint or a clarity on the surface
the ripples of the water shift
the wind, a cloud

and somewhere in me,
veins tangle
loose, tepid fibers, holding all my life---
maybe i'd rather be stone, just lay someone
soft against me

even this bone isn't hard enough, under my shirt,
with teeth as soft as eyelids, what would that make my lips

and here you are, walking around like you do
there you are, standing

(i'm) easy

every day will be cold
hollow footsteps on frozen,
dead land and i will walk
and walk, and see

and in the night, i will
step into the warmth
it will always feel good
and i will sleep, and sleep