The hawk must be the only one.

I know he sees me -
He makes a sign.
A secret code
That siblings use
When speaking straight
Might ensnare.

I walk through worlds
With quiet steps.
But not too near
That any see
Or feel my breath
Or even guess.

Yes.

The hawk may be
The only one.

My wings are straight.
My wings are strong.
And one day soon
I'll fly to him.

Love,  be gentle and kind,
take that rusty gun from under
my pillow and shoot me twice
in the heart so I can feel the hurt
from the first time and the pain
from the second again;
but don't bury me in the dirt
beneath your bare feet,
just burn me like the memory
of your brown soles I saw
running away, oh, so long
a time ago, I can't even remember.

She captures autumn
in a jar
reads the moon's straying
through leaf and branch

Always in love
with love
and always reeling
from the loss

What wave tossed this refugee
ashore?
What alignment
of stars and planets
of uncountable galaxies
brought this woman
to this world and not another?

A simple truth will tell.
The moon at high tide
hides beneath her skirts.
A slight disturbance
in the silken fabric
of space and time
and all is lost
all is born.

I hold my hands out
palms up
in prayer and thanks
every day
to mark the blessing
to place a peg
in the whole.

Given to all
denied to none
and mysterious to most

Life pours out of
a hole in the sea
leaves nothing
and everything
to chance.

This blessed world.

we are burnt inside,
            full of old straw,
            tar and wet ash,

passing trucks lift my hair,
           wash my eyes with diesel

trees and fields behind the stop
           are fenced and grubby,
           they darken,

we are lost in direction
          between two nothings,
          untied to our kin ;

seekers of line and light
          down the way of a savage god,
          the cruel autobahn.

A maul is not an axe;
an axe is not a maul.

One is for splitting,
the other for felling.

Of course to trees
such distinctions
are immaterial.

Walnut rounds
scattered on grass
stare into juniper
scratching the sky—

tall pallbearers
shiver in wind,
whisper above
dead medallions,
unblinking eyes.

The handle I hold
like a divining rod;

metal blade forged
by inchoate words,

honed on grinding
letters of precision.