Do not stand
          By my grave, and weep.
     I am not there,
          I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
     Do not stand
          By my grave, and cry—
     I am not there,
          I did not die.
— Clare Harner, The Gypsy, December 1934

no matter the cause
of your tears

whatever the hurt
which bruises your heart

for any terror
that haunts you

it is a grief to me
that you should suffer so

In Dublin in December I sat
on a shore bench in Sandymount

& watched thunderheads strut
on stork legs of raking rain while

bullish boats trundled through
with taut cheeks sobbed with rime.

My heart was full of weeks of doubt,
I'd flown in on a night plane

aching with the knowing
that something was badly turned,

distance could no longer be borne,
all the miles within and without.

We drank, coupled, and confessed
through long, long nights as outside

the high open window the stars
sloughed their waffling shine into

the many arms of the river, and gulls
eavesdropped on desperate sins.

By day she showed me her city
of castles and secret gardens,

elephant bones and electric trees,
& quietly urged me to join her.

As we crossed Beckett bridge
to seek troubled love on her couch

we pierced a cold and hanging fog,
prehaunted by the loss that followed.

In every room
I've lived in,
all the dilapidated shacks
over the years that I've
stayed in, always had a
brown spider that crawled
the walls.
It had a little suitcase.

I thought to myself that it
planned on leaving, moving to
someplace better.
It never did.
It always just set up shop, and
spun a web in the corner and caught
flies, and occasionally a small moth.

On drunken sad moon nights,
I sang dirges to the trapped bugs.
They smiled and laughed, even though
they were dying.

~
Refraction
Love passes through
And changes
Direction
Let it hold sway
The heart leans toward catastrophe
In the blue headlights
Of parenthood
Mom and dad
Suspended from a pivot
Their offspring
Asleep on a sunbeam
~

Make sure there's nobody around
To see you leave this place,
Keep your eyes down,
Don't even look back at me.

If they ask why you were gone,
You were studying; you ran back,
I know they'll ask why you're flushed,
But keep your head down and nod.

Drive down the backroads when you leave,
Replay the words I always say:
"You can always stop"
But I know we won't get there

To those meetings in parking lots,
Because we're just lying in these rooms
Continuing this illicit affair
Because we failed to hide our longing stares.

It started with just a kiss, now it's so much more,
And it'll end with all of this,
Dying and dying like the stars we sat under
A million times together.

When you leave, take everything with you,
Delete all the photos, and emails,
Like we didn't exist at all,
I'm sorry I left you stranded again.

But don't take my words to heart,
I'm just high of the taste of you,
It'll all wear away soon,
No illicit affairs to die anymore.

And if we talk again, I'm screaming on the inside,
Because if you try to call me baby,
I'll cry, like we died, and I can't let you
See all those parts of me again.

So don't come up to me again
Like we're back to normal—it's just pretend
And I know that I'm a broken mess,
But you made me keep coming back

So I know all too well how this goes,
This game, this play, this twisted show,
And I can't deny that I would ruin myself
For you a million times.