She vomited up spring time,
the scent of mud
and the sound of ducks wings
spilling out onto the sidewalk

There was June in her eyes
embers starting to burn
things starting to grow
laughs foreshadowing tears

Me desperte en el desierto.

Las llanuras pulsaban en el calor:
ido fueron los edificios que habitan en el cielo.

La Tierra me hablo;
"Mira en mis obras eres poderoso y desperado."

Eschuche el lobo en la noche.
Yo lo conocia,
pero
el lobo es una cosa incognoscible-
- solo puedes verlo a traves de tus ojos.
Y ver un lobo a traves de tus ojos...
bien
tus ojos tambien podrian haber sido cerrados.

Senti vida alli.
En algun lugar entre mi corazon y higado.

En la suave luz del amanecer,
antes del incendio
mire por encima de obras desalmadas
y yo queria saber lo que el lobo sabe
pero
es impossible:
uno no puede saber lo que el lobo sabe
mas de lo que uno puede saber lo que sabe el rock
el dia
el mundo.

Translation

I woke up in the desert.

The plains pulsed in the heat;
gone were the skydwelling buildings.

The land spoke to me,
"Look on my works ye mighty and despair."

I listened to the wolf in the night.
I knew him,
but
the wolf is an unknowable thing.
You can only see it with your eyes
and to see a wolf through your eyes
well
they might as well have been closed.

I felt life here
between my heart and my liver.

In the soft light of the dawn
before the fire
I look on the souless works
and i want to know what the wold knows
but
it's impossible
one cannot know what the wolf knows
anymore than one can know what the rock knows
the day
the world.

I met a girl once,
from some distant
antique land,
and she told me
that sometimes
Chicago winters burn brightly.

Her silent snows fell softly
on my sandy shores,
and her skies saw hues
that she hadn't known.

I wanted so badly
to take her hand,
but you can't really care for anyone...
until you've lost them.

I buzzed around her heart
for she had honey in her core
but it wasn't ready,
and when we said goodbye
I wondered if our paths would diverge
once more.

I picked my emotions
out of the night sky,
and dredged up my guilt
from the wine dark sea:
packed them into a suitcase
with socks,
and that old wool sweater.

I stepped off the plane
into the Miami swelter,
but for the first time
in to
a Miami
without you.

I watched the life fade out of you
like a tide slowly receding -
- inexorable, cold, without mercy.
I could sense you from afar
as your body fought a civil war
down in the depths
where it was too dark
too dark to see.
I am not sure if I want to say the bowels of hell
or just...
your bowels -
- I am not sure if there's a difference.

You waited there.
In a room filled with neon lighting
charts, beeping lights, and cords:
with nurses and strangers passing by
until life stole even you
from yourself.

She had a beauty that boomed like thunder,
distant on the newscast- while some family
stood by the wreckage of their lives after
the storm (somewhere in Oklahoma) and,
it made you want to cry, like a newly made
widow, who’s story would follow at the top
of the hour: people described her with -

vibes a lot, but nothing vibrated, it was more
like an explosion, but not like a backpack in
Gaza, more like the Fourth of July, in Ohio.

It was hard to see her by looking directly:
you had to find her in angles and moonlight,
and even then you weren’t sure in the same
way that sometimes you can’t see the stars
because the constellations get in the way.
She made me think of Miami, but I couldn’t
say if it was more Miami than Miami, or just
what was left …

…of imperfect pictures painted by a sculptor
that wasn’t always paying attention at the
right time.

I keep telling myself to not look back in anger,
but I wonder what I'd even look back to.
How much of you is left;
or has your Chicago been built over by a more Chicago?

Sometimes you can't see the stars
because the constellations are in the way
in the way that only your love
can be more you than you.

Some day that tea cup
will put itself back together
and it will all start to collapse;
hold me closely then?

It was early July when I kissed my father Daedalus goodbye.

She burned so extravagantly under the stars.

I soared through soggy summer air.

All the while the love in her faded.

My fall into autumn was triumphant.