She first noticed Antonio when he stepped out of a mob,
holding roses for her;
a bloom for every head in the rabble.

She took him on--
her personal little rooster.
He made love to her as if in timelapse--
an ardent insect skittering adoringly along her body.
She could have kept him in a jar, or a desk drawer.

The war came, then.
The sun went off-kilter, tilting drunkenly into the further reaches of the canals.
What use, anymore, for filmmakers
or their gaudy chattering treasures wearing ridiculous gowns,
smiling automatically at the invading armies?

Her last film was a dark comedy
released with subtitles and smuggled to the West
only to languish in a storage locker,
unwatched,
as round and unheeded as the lessons of history
in its circular tin container.

Her rooster was never meant for difficult times,
and he became tubercular--
within a month, he drifted through the bedroom curtains like a ghost,
and took to living with a flock of crows
as their underling,
but yet, he was flying, wasn't he?

She missed Antonio
and the competition of auditions and readings.
Feeling ****** and out of sorts, she joined the underground.
Wearing berets and trench coats, they taught her to handle a rifle
and to shoot fat-faced officials through the heart.
It was her ingenue days all over again.

Antonio and the now-faded diva met again after the war,
on a single occasion,
at a hotel in Suwanee, Georgia.
She ordered gin through a heavy accent,
and he flipped his good wing, tiredly.
After a silence, they both spoke at once--
"Do you remember..." they began, and then laughed.

It was, by then, the only thing to say,
and it was enough.
_

Your love is like a frozen bird, a
feathered stone falling from the sky.
I wish it didn't die.
It should be flying, and soring, and
healing, against the warm blaze of
the afternoon sun--weaving and
diving through the coolness of the clouds.
But it's gone, and all it can do is
plummet and take a few more
birds out, on its way down.

In the day of the fever,
at the end of the war,
you'll take up my hand and I'll give up my place--
my customary place--
in the hall, on the floor,

to go riding with you.
Remember the days when willows leaned low
over the canal, where we girls used to go?
And oh, the things we liked to do.
But you, My Love, you already know.

In those days when the voices were sweet in my head,
the willows leaned low, as if putting babies to bed;
there were no air raids,
no rubble, cracked and sharp-edged--
just mama's little angels passed out in the hedge.

So now...what, My Pet?
Kisses to catch up on?
Rooms to let?
Do you want to love me slow and easy?
I'll take all I can get, I'm not so far gone
that I would say no to that.

In the fields at the far end
of the old road to town,
you can see the hulk of the Junker
that the home guard shot down.
I just like to think that it fell
from its bedding of clouds
like a baby...My Baby...
where the willows lean down.

She left Reno
in a satin slip
the color of hot coins
pouring from slots,
wearing chewed-up tennis shoes,
mirrors multiplying her,
the marquee burning out
letter by letter,
a hush pressed between her teeth
as if saving the last note.

I followed,
a gangly shadow,
mother’s voice in my ear:
life is not a freeway exit.
But she was the exit.
She drove west
through a glittering throat.

In Tonopah she was a waitress
with red stains on her wrists,
the sleeves tugged low,
coffee pouring thin as blood.
In Barstow she was a sun-bleached Madonna,
halo blistered, mouth lit in stained glass.
At a gas station in Needles
she shimmered into a coyote’s shadow
and slipped behind the pumps.
Everywhere,
a new disguise,
a flicker at the edge of vision.
Not the whole leap,
just rehearsal.

Casinos blinked like electric relics.
Truckers called her sugar,
greedy hands counting her ribs
as if she were a paycheck
sweating in their fist,
but she slipped away each time,
her silhouette already moulting-
a serpent skin, a smoke-trail,
a saint’s shadow burning off the wall.

By Malibu the night
had softened to velvet.
The pier at Zuma
leaned into the Pacific
like a broken rib.

She sang once-
low, cracked, unfinished-
and the slip fell from her
like the last lie.
Her body cut into the dark tide,
this time there was no disguise.

I waded in after her,
ankles bruised by rock.
The sea lit with jellyfish,
not lanterns but wires,
each pulse a warning,
each glow a wound.

Standing at the highway’s end-
no exit left,
just the Pacific’s mouth
closing around her.

In apparent silence,
Raindrops play their music.
I look at the strings of stretched water
Before they touch the soft, damp ground.

Fog has covered the distant hills.
The Spirit of those Mountains
Existed only in the past chants
Of those who, without bodies,
Return to their abandoned homes
As a breath on a wet glass.

I don't know their language,
But I hear their words:
The fog,
The rain,
The hills
And memories
Hidden in the soothingly cold rocks
And streams of clear water.

I cut out a piece of earth and sky
I've always been sad to leave that place.
I stay a few moments longer,
Before walking ahead
I drink the peace,  
I eat the rustle of the wind,
Absorbing the steady pattern of raindrops.

I long to be invisible
A drawing of the unearthly landscape
And come back here endlessly
After long absences.
In the green valley,
Immersed in the rain
Where I leave and find myself
Again,
Again,
Again…

The woman with the cat face made a wish
And all the sparrows turned to fish.

The sky produced them at her command
Stacked like kippers upon her hand.

The woman with the cat tail switched it once
And paving stones turned to hot cross buns.

The woman with the cat tail switched it twice
And made Catholic bishops of five field mice.

The woman with the cat heart had a beau
Set him on a gallows and swung him low.

The woman with the cat heart clapped her hands
And made his coffin out of watering cans.