In the dream my wounds
were bandaged with
chains of paper dolls.
Each doll had "4, 11"
written where its eyes
should be.

It was my childhood house
but every room empty
& dark. When I went out
into the yard the front
of the house had a sentence
across the brick:
"They will not fill it."

There was no sound
anywhere except
my breath. When I
went back inside
I opened the oven
and saw a coffee mug
holding all my baby teeth.

The car in the driveway
held four scarecrows.
The television was dead.
The picture frames
all held the same photo
of me facing away.
Just before I woke up
I walked downstairs
to the fireplace and
in the ashes I heard
my own voice say
"not yet."

Night-hinted marriage
& old story ******* -
then another mono morning,
my mind a mountainside.
When I almost make you late,
your face so serious,
my polished misericorde
slips between the shining
plates, it knows with such
precision where to cut.
It's a proving hour,
long ices of thought,
before I pull it out. You
rest your head against me
& I imagine dropping
the blade into a scabbard
of blue hydrangeas.
I ask of you, if I lay down
beneath your troubles,
empty my unhappy hand.

Morning light skips across
the water like a smooth stone.
Tall bridges coagulate in
memory, colored the
bright yellow of the savanna.
The city swarms with business.
Coins sleep in the fountains.
Rain comes in old surprises.
Noon slips. And soon  
I'm thinking of you again,
sleeping in your green city.
Oh, if I could ride the sun
to your sunrise, throw off
the shining bridle and
kiss you from the
soft grip of dreams!

Back then, there
were no goodbyes,
and tomorrows
I swallowed like
chartreuse. Evening
buttons undone.
Bones whistled night.
Birds slipped as fire
rifled the yard.
I wanted to cry,
sweet-haired, low
with breath, as
someone built a myth
and then broke it.
The years deviled,
pears wasted away.
There were no goodbyes,
and tomorrows were
lost in the eye.

Let intensities
drop away -

leave chains
behind you.

A forest's
bathing sway

enough
to bind you.

Release the
dying day,

so stillness yet
might find you -

quiet starts
to breathing's arts.

I was once told that I wasn't
afraid of heights, but of being
thrown from them -
& this was a comfort, for
the flaw wasn't in me, per se,
but in my reading of other
people, my trust in their
intentions. Even so, crossing
any bridge was breathing knives.

Then I met you, and we walked
over Taft bridge, the largest
unreinforced concrete structure
in the world, rising above
Rock Creek gorge, 128 feet
above the bright green floor
I feared until you.

We crossed it in style. I was
in the angle of the eagle.
I walked on the backs of lions.
I held light. My eye surveyed
the depths of the glen.
I walked with you by my side
all the way to Dupont,
& when we shared coffee -
I spoke endlessly to comfort
your excess of sun -
I felt a swerve of glory, a sense
of the world that I only shared
with you.