Oh, love, why do we argue like this?
I am tired of all your pious talk.
Also, I am tired of all the dead.
They refuse to listen,
so leave them alone.
Take your foot out of the graveyard,
they are busy being dead.

Everyone was always to blame:
the last empty fifth of *****,
the rusty nails and chicken feathers
that stuck in the mud on the back doorstep,
the worms that lived under the cat's ear
and the thin-lipped preacher
who refused to call
except once on a flea-ridden day
when he came scuffing in through the yard
looking for a scapegoat.
I hid in the kitchen under the ragbag.

I refuse to remember the dead.
And the dead are bored with the whole thing.
But you -- you go ahead,
go on, go on back down
into the graveyard,
lie down where you think their faces are;
talk back to your old bad dreams.

I DON'T blame the kettle drums-they are hungry.
And the snare drums-I know what they want-they are empty too.
And the harring booming bass drums-they are hungriest of all..    .    .
The howling spears of the Northwest die down.
The lullabies of the Southwest get a chance, a mother song.
A cradle moon rides out of a torn hole in the ragbag top of the sky.

They're patrolling the walls again,
but not in the rain, a ragbag
army of volunteers. Traffic rattles
through, but not the charioteers.

They're searching lurching through the past,
not seeking to know what dreadful deeds
religion's deadly kisses, or excessive powers
have granted, but how life was, in short visits.

There are others, who could know how
man treatred man to misery,
through ****, rope, fire and blade,
even the big dipper thrills brigade.

Forgive me. There are things beyond quantities, things
I feel in the flush of my face. A rhythm to my breath.
An arrest of senses traipsing here and there.
A ragbag of memories, superstitions
Behind lips and lids, other shutterings
And listen! — We are fragile with smaller things.
Pomegranates, plucked loose. Our seeds
Scattered with a tap. Existence, broody
Disrobed of its leathery skin,
We bleed through the impossible pulp to speak
Salvation: Brand new with tags.