leaning into the darkness of the night

into the stillness of the leaves, leaning, into
                                                                   into
into the soft perfume of the flowers,

he loved it when she was sad, - suspended
between the sudden gust of wind,

every time he looked at the sky, tender tears
appeared, from nowhere,
running on her milky face, as if caressing the
clouds,

he watched her sad gaze wandering among the waves,
dressing them with a last sunset,

the tide still remembers her steps,
while the sea always forgets shells on the shore

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

On a morning like this, lethargic and indifferent,
It is so easy to make me rich,
When the pain is moving slowly and smoothly, and
I hold on to you, like a monkey,
                                                         ­            Sob on me,
Make me the richest woman in the world,
Richer than Hetty Green,
Greedier than Hetty Green,

Can you see, my dear, how fast it is raining?
And the forest, a trickster, is washing its leaves,
Pretending that it cares while it is cheating with the rapper.

No one tells them that after the colors explode,
They will invade their hearts, like big Colonizers,
Will put names on them, and play cards,
Drink whiskey, laugh, and feed the earth, so after
They can ride their horses as a symbol of freedom and kindness,
Making donations and digging water wells,

On a morning like this, I believe,
Our story is like that of the gold seekers,
It is so easy to make me rich,
Make me the richest woman in the whole world,
Richer than Hetty Green,
Greedier than Hetty Green,

Dig me, baby, it is in my eyes,
Whisper in my ear, while the cold raindrops are touching my face,
They are hiding in my hair, on a morning like this,
Be my tears, lethargic and indifferent,
Ask the leaves, on a morning like this,
I hope they do not lose their mind,
                                                And will remember me in the spring

I watched Dad lift
the stunted tree from a highway table,
ceramic *** hot as a skillet in his palms.
Its roots pressed tight
against their shallow prison,
a life made small,
taught to accept it.

He drove through the Mojave
with the bonsai on his lap,
branches trembling
as if already afraid of him.
I whispered secrets to its needles,
pressed my lips to its tiny crown
the way you kiss a sleeping baby.

In the cabin,
rain thickened the air with cedar and promise.
I circled stones around the tree
like friends around a birthday cake
and waited for it to laugh.

When its *** shattered,
he said nothing.
I held its dangling roots in my hands,
mud soaking through my shoes,
syrup cracking on my cheeks.

We buried him-
a little boy, I said,
at the lake’s edge
beside his mother
whose twisted trunk leaned toward water.
Dad said magic would save him,
hoodoo magic,
forest magic,
the kind that never answers back.

On the drive home
I counted hoodoos in silence
and watched the empty bucket
roll on the back seat
like a heart without a cage.

There is a name
for the man with a hundred hands
who lies under your bed,
fifty mucked-up faces
for fifty bad-luck places
where your loved ones end up dead.

Rumpelstiltskin will not do.
Call him Briareos the Hecatoncheir
when his bone-breaking arms
reach up for you.

Call him Gyges, the fox,
sliding through your traps and lures;
Torquemada
when the dark door locks;
Haman, whispering to the jury;
Pharaoh, smiling in the hall;
******-
when the gas begins to fall.

You think you know him.
Do you?
Name him.
Or he will name your fate,
and you’ll hear it spoken
when the floor gives way.

Sixteen,
skin baked with brine and chlorine,
Top 40 hissing in my Walkman.

The girl found me first,
barefoot on the sandy trail,
tears spilling, pointing back to the sea.
A jellyfish sting, she couldn’t say it,
just clung to my leg like kelp.

Her mother rose from the dunes,
black bikini, tan lines,
two beach bags gnawing her wrists.
coconut oil, salt, chipped Jackie O shades.
She sighed, called the girl dramatic,
drifted home on scraping sandals.

Their world leaked into ours,
adjacent green bungalow
with fronds rattling like bones,
oranges sagging into white fuzz,
ATV ruts torn through the yard.
Rob polishing his Camaro,
coughing through pollen and Skoal,
swearing he saw a gator the size of a boat
slide into the canal at dusk.

She’d wander up, black bikini,
thighs shining,
shadow falling across my pool chair.
“Hey, you see my kid?” she’d ask,
leaning close,
the scent of Coppertone
and Marlboro Gold
fogging my thoughts.

I’d shift polite, church-boy manners,
“No, ma’am,”
She’d smile
at the clumsy hormones
rising off me
like steam.

Nights were bonfires,
oranges softening to flies,
Rob coughing in his driveway
while the pool light hummed and flickered.
Her shadow swam on the walls,
slick as the gator sliding into dusk.

I burn my one effulgent hour
at a driveway banquet of unwanted goods,
listening to a woman in a Sag Harbor T-shirt
tell me her son’s wife hates her,
she never sees the grandkids,
and she’s moving to Costa Rica
because the dollar goes farther
and no one visits anyway.

Through my sunglass scrim
I watch komorebi flicker
across the varicose veins
of her blue-white calves
and wonder why I even stopped,
why I ask the price of a microwave
I don’t want.

Twenty, she says,
brand new, never used.
I hand her two crumpled dollars
for a box of yellowed greeting cards
with kittens and roses
and tell her my real name.

All the while
I feel the light through leaves,
the ache to bite your buttermilk neck,
to nip the chantarelles of your earlobes,
while the shadow falls,
reminding me I’d better love
whatever I am doing -
because it may be the last thing I ever do.