Sometimes I think
That life is a pear
And I sit on the stem
With my speckled skin bare

Sometimes I think
that life bruises too fast,
How it's softened by things
That have already past

Sometimes I believe
I can quiet white noise
And muffle the clutter
That swallows up joys

Sometimes I pretend
That I'm going to die
That the airplane I'm in
Drops out of the sky

Sometimes I think of
Emergency lights,
How when all else goes out
Then the exit's still bright

            And sometimes I think
            Of my thin cotton shift
            Of the noise that it makes
            When I lean for a kiss.

The water in your blood
was once in the blood of dinosaurs,
the blood of bears, the blood of wolves.
Your father came and took you,
dipped your feet into the river,
when you were only two weeks old.
And I am nothing of a carpenter
and even less an engineer
but If I were I'd take a hammer
and I would build a bridge to Canada
New windows for our broken homes
a pathway winding westward from
the wailing ocean tide.

i slept in the heart of the swallow’s breast
in the tire-swing marina
“who do you love best?”
what is the name that I drank in the dark
whose syllables traipsed through the silt
morning start
who was the pit of my hunger my thirst
i am a tulip, bloom
ing in reverse

You had a method for testing the fiction
said “God’s not a bad man, but I know you need fixin’
You’re beautiful, you’re underwhelmed, anyway.”

There is a hand in the sky holding flames to your eye
but it’s not hard to tell there’s fresh swell of sighs
on its way to us, expectant, holding sway.

A court of flatterers dolled up in tatters,
I can hardly hear for the sound of their chatter--
the words they say fumble, they lead astray.

Since in the daytime I am soft-spoken and mild,
they’re all convinced I have the soft will of a child
It’s up to you to explain, I must have my way.

See, I’ve got a fine plan for testing the fiction,
God’s a good man when he’s free of restrictions
So trust in me when I say, I will pray.

Talking of sacrament, boy’s got a blessed bent
so he won’t hold me when ma says it’s not prudent--
“It’s not for a girl to say, anyway”

Here’s my hand reaching; I was born a huntress,
Come when I call you, obey when I say undress:
Here’s a test for your holiness, here I lay.

Who fell asleep in
her headphones plugged into
Abalone shells
a repeating sequence of ocean swells
on this frequency, smoke signals--
Don't touch that dial
While the land-locked
pulpit-boy's preaching denial;
Push up that skirt,
fashioned out of swans' feathers scattered
over the parson's house
It's hallowed ground you're jumbled upon
bleeding out oceans on the parish lawn.

lover, I fear the future.
I fear you, a century behind me
I fear the lights that appear
under your skin and guide my fingers
down and across
till with an ear against your neck
I feel the shudder of ancient wings.

lover, I fear your insides,
the plum-colored honeycomb
of tissue and pulp,
sympathy and deep hives of unrest,

in the lull I gaze towards the ceiling,
lover, I brave it all when
above my head, hands clasped
like a pilgrim, I rail
against, against, against—

vanilla, teak, tobacco,
I perfume my sheets with you.

I feel it now, a separate sense
from the hander-down of names:
A poet’s soul, a half, a whole;
not sprung from any swain,
on bitter earth in stone papoose
bindings clipped from restless roots
I know, in separate senses, this--
that the names I shake from trees
belong only to me,
I am not a daughter but
this wet seed fallen free.