If I could
pinpoint the
exact moment
your breath
touched mine
washed me over
in ocean waves
sea creatures glowing
in delightful recognition
as the seedlings
of connection
shimmied into our being
and, dancing within me
in its own lifeforce
your mind a living,
breathing animal
your heart, purring
and whirring its sacred forces
into my molecular structures
your soul throbbing
in mitochondric pulsing
(oh what
a delicious vibration
of ribosomes)
Between us, we hold
the true treasures
close, in frothy
                       tenderness
a purity of the expanse
of our universe,
swathed in prismatic color
colors that shift,
these fresh hues
for which there are no name
they are lucid and fine-woven
as silk histories
yet deep as earthcore
your eyes, voice
are forever burned
into my own
every day scriptures
that rock my shattered parts
into wholeness
and,
like ancient magic,
I conjure forth
the holy gospel
rising from our bones
every second of
every minute
as our deepest fires
our most secret filth
our murky corners
our darkest hours
we weave into light
brilliant and lustrous
multi-layered in the richest
folds of the earth
and as you place me
upon the shores
of your garland-graced
                              throne
Now I'm alive in a new
kind of light
and
all I can do
is love
        and love
and love

This book is full
of my father's eye lashes
He treated the pages
rough like his sons
pinching the daylights
out of them, I remember
mud and grease
on calloused thumbs
and you can still smell
Four Roses bourbon
in the morning
through the onionskin
He would not weep
he knew most folks
never kept their word
Anyway, his death
came through
like a hitchhiker
You could see it coming
like the slow light
of a faraway dead star.

She didn't care much
about the ruined stuffing
of the dead animal
Just the music box
exposed at its heart
like a cypher
of brass-colored keys
plinking away at itself

--a player piano* in someone's basement
to impress, entertain
less affluent
cocktail friends

Never took much
to sweep her away--

like the insides
of a music
box
resisting
curious fingers
to speed it up
or slow it down
learning how
to force
its secret
into her hand

Marveled when it skipped
at the broken pins
a minute glitch
finds holes in tune

as roll uncoils
to spring the ditty

“This girl has mechanic's ability”

Forcing mechanisms
noticing holes that catch at music
slowing  
slowing to sadden the song

Winding it up to hear  
again--
happy

Tears when it stopped

--the question
of why?
of its own accord

She slumped by the archway of the Chapel,
Forlorn, beaten in fact;
She had come to these grounds from Plattsburgh,
(Cold, martial little city home to General Wood’s summer flings)
To lay a wreath she’d bought near the train station at Bayeux
Purchased from a women at a small shop table,
Who’d had the grace not to haggle over-much,
Knowing full well why someone would make such a purchase.
She’d hoped to lay it at her brother’s marker;
He’d been lost at Omaha, likely before he’d set foot on the sand
(She’d no ideas of such things at the time,
Death being a thing that happened to rabbits
Their old shepherd chased down in the back yard,
Or dolls beheaded courtesy of her younger brother)
But the plot number given to her with such confidence
By the young adjutant from the War Department
Had a name wholly unknown to her
(Where the information was bollixed she had no way of knowing,
Not that officialdom would be any more help to her,
With so many sons in Scranton,
So many husbands in Hamtramck,
So many fathers and brothers in the same boat)
And so she sat, overwhelmed with the distance she’d come,
The magnitude of her failure and its implications,
And the whole **** burden of simple humanity
When she was approached by an older man,
Who clearly resided nearby
(Why he was here less evident—the hush of the venue, perhaps,
Possibly some corporal he was indebted to).
He’d understood her predicament in an instant,
No doubt a scene he’d witnessed scores of times before,
Laissez-le sur un monument funéraire,
He crooned, patting her forearm
Ce n’est pas important, and he sauntered away.
She’d considered heeding his advice,
But she remained hostage
To some vestige of latter-day Babbitesque can-do,
And so she soldiered back toward the endless rows of marble,
Stretching out in endless parallel lines
As in some middle-school perspective perspective drawing
Without borders, without end.

children all, in this field of white stones:

a thousand twin sons from different mothers

all is math, though here subtraction reigns supreme

I take four numbers from four, and am left with nothing

minuend deaths, subtrahend births

whether the difference is nineteen or twenty-nine, both now equal zero

zero years to return to a mother's desperate loving arms,

zero years to marry a sweetheart, raise a son, or again hoist a flag

for now the baneful banner is folded neatly,

for those whose numbers I tabulate

in this garden of the early dead

where errant weeds are slaughtered

lest they blaspheme the chosen grasses

kept neatly above the chosen ******

Fear waits upon its prey
where the light is a shamefaced girl

wind is a fragmented guest
where silence fools the unwary

to chirp the birds forget
where the baiter might be the bait

the hush is not all white
as in that ever ruling night
blood is spilled without sound.

Forlorn as the lovers' lost track
meanders the creek
in moans for the lost
shedding its sighs to the tides.

If you were to walk,
To where the bay curves,
There is a cove with fishes,
And slippery clay,
Grey and squelched,
Between toes;
Here is where we played,
Under the seagulls call,
Between  the fishing boats;
Watching "Red Funnel"
Make straight lines
For France.

In my rocking horse sundress,
Red plastic sandals,
I collected shells and
Coloured pebbles,
Splashed in the warmed
Sea water and thought of
Robinson Crusoe.
My brother climbed
The cliff face above,
I watched him, still young,
My heart beating time.

And so we suddenly left,
Grew away from childhood,
From each other,
Drifted as the seaweed,
In and out with the tide.
Floated looking at the sky,
Calling out sometimes
To the echo of the bay,
For all those days of sunshine,
Of innocence and oneness,
Never to return as we were then,
Children on a beach at play.

Love to my brother ,Richard from Mary **