with what
cleanness
are wife hands
whole

in whose
joining
are the bodies
of my children

And

my wife’s body
in who slept
my children

whose breath
were
their breath

whose blood
were
their blood

carrying
the crumbs
of a little life
through
biggest
Death

Beast surfacing, the geyser blows
sea-spume that sudden, broaching, slows
to blue, then falls, no prim fountain
or ticking clock, Leviathan counting
decades at formal intervals.
On benches over rising thermals
that reach to roast us, faithful, waiting,
we cheer the act of hesitation
before the final curtain -- though, see,
the trick's just heat, just gravity.
Almost enough, I hear you say --
this tidal flame, this awe-filled day,
as mists dissolve and quick steam clears
and cools and sinks, for years, years.

While I still breathe, I write to save my life
in compact form; mistakes, the lessons learned,
triumphant days and nights of needless strife
brought on by willful dreams and bridges burned.
One day too soon, a final page will turn,
the book will close. My fine and fragile chain
to life will break.  A loneliness unearned
will mark your passing days in ink of pain.  
Then if you wish to hear my voice again
one silent morning when you wake alone,
I leave you songs and poems.  Each refrain
will resurrect the soul you've always known.
So when my fated moment shall arrive,
my words are here; come read me back alive.

When offered the gift
of myself, I no longer
seek the return desk.

if there is nothing human
about humanity
what's to save

it's not the pandemic
that keeps us separate
it's the dehumanization
and the demonization
the demoralization
we heap upon each other

no poet
can survive the lack
of friction
between their lives
and the lives of others

this artificial suspension
of everyday life
wrapping ourselves
in tight-lipped tolerance
or inflamed outrage
does nothing
but extend the isolation

the flimsy rope bridges
that cross the chasms
of derision
sway in the winds
of anarchy

those still able
and are willing
to communicate


must.

There is a deep honor befriending an elder;
returning the blessings that we've been bestowed.
Also a frisson of fear we have held, for
we pray we are gifted with honor, not owed .

by the way,
I have always loved you,
unwonderlingly which
I do not think
another hand
would be so nice
in mine

a hand last held
—no void to fill:
(the hand that grasps
is empty still).

so wait this hand
to holdest yours
when shut my eyes
as closest doors

no part, no rent
will bear the breaking
of flesh’s joy
a join making

so lay in still
at slumbers ask
a morn will come
where loves a bask

hello.

you are there
you are something
i think that you are easily dreamless.

you are the white
turning over of pale morning
into your neck and the pooled freshness of your *******.

you are these two things:
my hands–which make within
themselves bloodsong and wine.

finely twined with pale wire,
your eyes rest below your scalp:
they are chips of ice–limpid; ****.

(you stir you pull your hand into my
hand i kiss over the sleeping of your
white cheeks i stroke your golden hair
i slip my leg under your leg:

I can never touch enough of you.)

i love
you've are
been:

           (alive) and i,

kissing within
the sleeping dawn:

wide white awake.

our small shoulders;
who's naked makes
our heart perspire
1 leaf of grass.

you are gold.
your hair is.
your mouth does.
i sometimes.
and have always.

love kiss laughter sleep argue sweat dream kiss kissing inside laughter

this makes sleeping,
inside your slender,
the beginning song of life:

my lip;
the shoving of sudden fur;
your own quaking;
and the collapsed nerve.

and the each new little thing of it
(ever day)
makes life in smooth jolts.

love as a woman,
who wears within,
our love in something

very alive,
quickly with 10 fingers
10 toes and grows
inside that hive
where my love as flesh
has lingers.