deprived of a tongue, I breathe
all the more clearly.

ondine, ondine, here is your mirror.
you think your lips are your shield,
your heart a weapon sharply whet?
is that sunlight through water in your pale hair,
or is it a drown'd fishwife's tangle?
have your cheeks, my ondine, the blush of white rose,
or the underside of a fish's belly,
white and clammy in the gloam?
oh, do your eyes draw me in like grey clouds thundering,
or do they cut me like shards of beer-bottle glass by the sea?
ondine, sweet ondine, pray tell it to me!

I can't put my finger
on what it is
that makes my gut
sour and sweet
at the same time.
I only know that you
smell nice and clean
and you have stains
on your shirt
that prove you're
a working man.
I might prefer a
starched white
collar and a
pair of designer
stays, but at
this moment I
enjoy garbage bags
over windows
and a low voice
that whistles
for dogs.

These ivory, ceramic keys have become foreign
to the grooves cutting across my finger prints.
I force the unfamiliar notes
into the dusty air, and smile
because you once whispered
        I love you because no one else can.

I find myself escaping from dreams
and opening doors into different rooms.
Blue and orange striped sheets,
corduroy cushions,
a white, sleepless bed
greet my coffee muddled irises
as I un-glue eyelids from lens.
And as your pale blue eyes pierce through mine
during these influential moments,
I begin laughing as you whisper
        I love you because no one else will.

I have started to count the seconds it takes
for an ant to scurry across my wood floor.
Two hundred and sixty-three days later
I heard a knock on my door.
Sunlight outlines your blackened figure
and we both whisper
        *I love you because I don't know how to love another.

I’m a versatile
  night owl
peering with dark-rimmed eyes
upon my prey, those sorts of guys
that make me quiver
   hairline touch shiver
and pulse with a fervent scene

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby ---
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
or padded through the door,
grinning through their many teeth,  
looking for seeds,
suet, sugar; muttering and humming,
opening the breadbox, happiest when
there was milk and music. But once
in the night I heard a sound
outside the door, the canvas
bulged slightly ---something
was pressing inward at eye level.
I watched, trembling, sure I had heard
the click of claws, the smack of lips
outside my gauzy house ---
I imagined the red eyes,
the broad tongue, the enormous lap.
Would it be friendly too?
Fear defeated me. And yet,
not in faith and not in madness
but with the courage I thought
my dream deserved,
I stepped outside. It was gone.
Then I whirled at the sound of some
shambling tonnage.
Did I see a black haunch slipping
back through the trees? Did I see
the moonlight shining on it?
Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?