The plants and flowers
I raised about my hut
I now surrender
To the will
Of the wind

I was thinking of a son.
The womb is not a clock
nor a bell tolling,
but in the eleventh month of its life
I feel the November
of the body as well as of the calendar.
In two days it will be my birthday
and as always the earth is done with its harvest.
This time I hunt for death,
the night I lean toward,
the night I want.
Well then--
It was in the womb all along.

I was thinking of a son ...
You! The never acquired,
the never seeded or unfastened,
you of the genitals I feared,
the stalk and the puppy's breath.
Will I give you my eyes or his?
Will you be the David or the Susan?
(Those two names I picked and listened for.)
Can you be the man your fathers are--
the leg muscles from Michelangelo,
hands from Yugoslavia
somewhere the peasant, Slavic and determined,
somewhere the survivor bulging with life--
and could it still be possible,
all this with Susan's eyes?

All this without you--
two days gone in blood.
I myself will die without baptism,
a third daughter they didn't bother.
My death will come on my name day.
What's wrong with the name day?
It's only an angel of the sun.
Woman,
weaving a web over your own,
a thin and tangled poison.
Scorpio,
bad spider--
die!

My death from the wrists,
two name tags,
blood worn like a corsage
to bloom
one on the left and one on the right--
It's a warm room,
the place of the blood.
Leave the door open on its hinges!

Two days for your death
and two days until mine.

Love! That red disease--
year after year, David, you would make me wild!
David! Susan! David! David!
full and disheveled, hissing into the night,
never growing old,
waiting always for you on the porch ...
year after year,
my carrot, my cabbage,
I would have possessed you before all women,
calling your name,
calling you mine.

there is paint
it peels from my eyes
in long gaseous ribbons
it is punctuated by
a bright blindness
where methodologies
reach no conclusions
paint peels from my ears
in uncontested echoes
projecting a self
generated audible universe
paint peels from my mouth
in black storms
of expanded consciousness
leaving behind a particulated
paralized partition
that leaves me disconnected
in a correspondence of color
A field of snow
turning blue under moonlight
in accord with the peeling of paint
like a light emitted by relative thought
paint peels, paint peels, paint peels

most of all, i want to listen to your voice. anything you have to say. recite your grocery list, what you ate for breakfast. what’s your opinion on the weather? remind me about how you like the snow, but hate the cold. how you couldn’t fall asleep because the wind kept whistling through your broken window. tell me the story about how you broke that window again. again. again. how you hit that baseball too hard and it went soaring. tell me about that moment. the moment that it looked like that ball was flying. how’d you feel when it crashed? no, don’t tell me about that, i know it’ll make you think of the crash. how i crashed down on the concrete when we were walking that one night. i was barely conscious, so tell me about how you carried me a mile to my apartment. if you have to, tell me about why you left me there alone. how you’d asked me on the walk because we “needed to talk” and you had to do it that night, because she’d given you an ultimatum. don’t tell me about how you’d stayed with me that last month out of pity. or if you do, let those be the softest words you speak. softer than the things you whispered to me months ago. softer than the way you touched my cheek before you left me on that bed. tell me again how touching me made you sick those last few weeks and please assume that i felt the same. because every time i think of the truth, every time i think of how it wasn’t over for me, isn’t over for me...i love you. i can’t breathe. don’t let me speak. don’t let me speak. i only want to listen to the sound of your voice. keep talking. say anything. tell me all about her.

A redwrapped
foil held
biteful chocolate
heart

stashed in a yellow envelope
with handwriting that could be yours
on the outside.

For me.

It held more than --

It held clean kitchen counters
with crumbs swept daintily under appliances.
Gritty granules of yesterday hastily moved
to make more time.
Of clean floors,
wooden,
- for the bare feet -
and shoes, helterskelter -
        I did always intend to leave them tidy, but shoes have lives of their own
                 it seems.
- Never leave slippers in a cupboard,
you don't know what they might do
unattended --
I said.

Of wet sleeves
and damp tea towels
skinned over cupboard doors
with that scrubbed-clean
thoroughly-made-pink-from-the-evening scent.

washwet clothes dripping

but crisp new towels hanging hot
winter-fresh bedding

clothes always tangled on the floor
- for who has time to sort out socks when the body missing for months has finally come and bags are down toes out and hot water soap and hands together wet hair clean ready for cool shifting pillows and arms of dry towels -
before sun cuts skin and breakfast shouts in the morning.

Do you remember the apple cider?
Your house was always cold, every-
thing was always apples. I never
did get the matching triforce tattoo
with you and that is okay because I
don't like tattoos anyway. You didn't
ruin the Legend of Zelda for me, I
just said that. Remember to drink water.
Remember that everyone you ever meet
is responsible for their own feelings and
their own problems. Remember that lots
of things provide temporary fixes but
never solace.  

How about those frogs? Never a silent moment
until I yelled out your window and you lamented
over the amphibious life you stole with the lawn
mower. (I noted that I had caught frogs at my
grandfather's funeral).

Here's to your earliest memory. Standing in a hamper looking out
the window until your mom picked you up. Was there a bucket
involved? Here's to your scars, your split finger, right next to your pinky the red
on your cheeks, the rough texture of your triceps. That other chris in
kindergarten, Mercer? Did he steal your first love? Haven't smelled
your stomach for a year but I am pretty sure it still smells like
leather. Your hair, soft in the middle, rough around the edges.

Will I ever have enough documentation?

You taught me that tap water doesn't **** and that
all you have to do to make anything perfect is add
an egg or two.

Deep breath
Deep breath
Deep breath
Deep breath
Deep Breath

Pieter is a Norwegian and he lives
in the ground floor flat and takes
the bus to work and sits in his window
on his Vaio laptop with just a bare
bulb lighting his room
and receives a lot of mail from
South America
and we chat in the corridor downstairs
sometimes he’d hand me a beer
always Heineken
never ever anything else
and he’d tell me he existed primarily on
a diet of bananas probiotic yoghurt
prime beef and eggs along with beer
and on Saturday evenings only
two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon
which he’d sleep off on Sundays listening to
recordings of his home town’s church bells
and he said he understood Norway better
than the UK
you knew who you were in Norway and
were always a touch away from a friend
or foe and there was no artifice involved
just icy mountains and clear seas and the release
of arctic breath
and one Friday night Barb came over
and we sat with Pieter on the stairs
drinking his Heineken and I caught him
eyeing up Barb’s legs and I didn’t blame him
no sir I enjoy an eyeful and more myself
but we got steadily more drunk
and I ended up asking him if he was
a drug runner for coke-crazed Peruvians
and he just smiled as if it was
not such a crazy question and he
said
no, just money for Nigerians
and we clinked bottles
and we laughed
park it into an account cream off your
cut and move it on
a piece of ****
nice work if you can get it and we drink to that
and I hope Barb is feeling as ***** as me
and doesn’t want to go to the Beehive
before any Friday night genital work out
as its cold and snowing outside
and I’m not made
of Norwegian stuff.