The sun lights through the window
And a scattering of rainbows slants
Across your eager eyes.

Nothing comes from nothing,
That’s the way it’s always going to stay.

A poet scribbles down a line or two
To keep himself quiet—
You set fire to his pages and
The words all smoke into the air.

Stitch a needle full of fumes and sow yourself a coat;
You’re as good as making nothing.

Under the rural darkness, they formed into a circle.
‘Keep your secrets,’ they whispered, smiling—
Even from the distant hills
The shrieks of the dogs made more noise at night.

If you’re afraid, be afraid,
This is nothing you can understand.

Before a flock of no more than twenty,
Reverand Betham gives his second-to-last sermon.
There were no signs of it in him then.
Forgiveness, he talks about
Forgiving; the backs of heads nod
Between pews in the dust and the August heat.

Is anyone still surprised
That this is happening?
Where is Reverend Betham
Now?

People murmur because Betham
Is no longer allowed to teach
Sunday school.  I still see him
In his office, late nights, reading—
His lamp is always on.  It seems
So obvious to me now, when I think of
How he would fold the small
White robes and run his hands
Over them to smooth their creases.

Sunday, and the Reverend is granted
One farewell sermon, provided
He makes his apology.  Today it is even
Warmer; white paper fans swat
The air between the pews.  A crowd
Has come, only to curse the Reverend
As he enters the church.  I would later ask myself
What caused this?  What violent undertow
Has dragged the Reverend to the pulpit?
I, like any other, am also at the pulpit for my trial.
From the back of the church, I can hear
The click-click of the reporters’ cameras.

I saw him at work;
When he would visit the mangal
With a ***** over his shoulder.

He rolled up his pant legs and walked
Through the tidal wash.  Once he had picked a tree,
He hacked for three days to cut

The mud and the mangrove
Free from the surrounding forest.
He piloted his self-made island into the lagoon.

Shortly, he became mangrove crazy,
A disease he called Rhizophoria
In the notebook he had taken along.

With mud lobsters and tree for his only company,
Of course he had mangrove on the brain.
His life became an ellipsis—

The two centers were the tree and himself.
From tubular mangrove branches, propagules fattened,
And seeds nested inside them;

He would scribble notes with delirium as they fell
Plumply into the lagoon
And were pulled away by the warm current.

Each time the tree condensed its salt
Into a sacrificial leaf,
He would sadly add a tick

To the tally of the dead he kept in his book.
He once wrote:
‘The salt is burning my eyes.’

Late afternoons, with beer in our hands,
We would watch him from the beach,
Five hundred yards away.

Eventually, his mangrove island drifted ashore—
He lay by the suberic roots
With a crust of salt along his cheek.

What is it that we do
When we first want to love each other?

Our early love is a place
Where the senses get bent and blend
Blemishes into so many minute perfections.

Mornings I touch you in bed;
Sometimes, your hand sifts through my hair.
I sense you’ve noticed
That dryness on my scalp—
You look at me, unmoved,
As your hands find the scars on my shoulder.
This is my secret skin,
You have found me.
My own hands wander—
I am searching your figure
Expecting, at any moment,
To find the hidden flaw.
I find nothing
And I give up happily.
Then I fall asleep,
Admiring the *****
Of your coffee-skinned back
And your changing shape—
Larger as you breathe in, then
You shrink somewhat.

I.
Your socks, tight with sweat—
An early advertisement
that spring has arrived.

II.
Spring needs a waking-
bed: pungent mulch ambushes
your April nostrils.

III.
Sunshine plashes down.
Through warm waves you saw days
Unfold at your feet.

IV.
Frail infant stems stretch
through your toes and scan the scnee:
thin grass, sunbathing.

V.
And there’s skin on skin.
Come on!  Get naked it’s spring,
the season for sin.

VI.
When it rained, your eyes
dripped clear drops, their spring fragrance
as fresh as water.

VII.
There are nests, eggs; still,
I wonder, do the birds grasp
the meaning of spring?

It’s early Friday afternoon and,
over plates of greasy spoon dinner,
the musician and the businessman
repeat their weekly ritual.
The businessman has his problems at home
and spills his guts to his musician friend.
“It’s been a real long time coming,
but she’s still been such a bitter *****.”
They’ve met this way since
their college days and nights
spent studying the bottoms
of whiskey bottles.  And, as usual,
the businessman’s hair sits sprawled
on his head like a rag, and his tie
is loosened.  The musician doesn’t understand
divorce: “You look like hell.
You know, if you need a place to stay,
Helen and I and the boy
can always make some room for you.”
They light a pair of cigarettes and wait
for a waitress to kick them out.

Into the haze of a Lower East Side crowd
the musician and his band play
his newest pieces, riffs on the happy swagger
of the Duke.  His critics—
and he has many—
write that his jazz sings
the inescapable ******* of suffering
through the life of every oblivious body,
which makes the musician’s music
sound more like the blues
than jazz.  But it’s jazz all the same
and perhaps it was the intensity
of the growling bass that shot
spirits down the throats in the audience,
reeling drunk in time to the beat
of the musical suffering.

The weekdays die and it is Friday again.
He has a big view of midtown,
the businessman, and though the window the falling
sun horizons over his socked toes,
parked on his desk in triumph over
all those stockholders.  It’s a pain
to lose your family,
but the businessman puts on
a good face, and drinks.

This Friday, the musician and the businessman
are not in the mood for talking.  
But a scotch thrown down,
and the two are tighter than
thieves.
The businessman complains of life at home
and the musician’s eyes cross.

That night, the musician skips his performance.
His wife cries in their bed,
shuddering with worry and asking him
what makes him so distant? she asks—
it’s a mystery even to himself.
He is sweating whiskey—
which suits him fine—
and he spends his night on the bridge.

One week later and it is Friday, finally.
Today, the businessman will see
his children at his former home
for the last time for a handful of months
at best.  The musician has not been home
for three days.  He stays at a friend’s apartment,
puts on his ***** blazer
and a record of the Duke’s
before he throws himself down the airshaft.
The businessman jumps on the 5:44
out of town and calls his friend the musician
to cancel their usual Friday meeting,
but his phone keeps ringing,
ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing.

Go to sleep my baby boy;
Momma’s only gonna be here
for a little while.

Nod your head my precious boy—
Can I kiss you
before I go?

I’ve waited ten dark years
to see your face,
and now I know—

Momma’s been a sinner
and she’s only gonna be here
for a little while.

Momma gripped the infant soul.
She clutched that child to her meager heart,
Hoping like a dying man in fever
To swallow salvation before his hour of going.
Then she heard the eerie angels singing—
The Man stepped out through the cloudy mantel.
She looked to Him and cried:

Oh Lord, please forgive me,
I’m an unwanted guest—
But I snuck in through a back door

And I’ve been to see my boy
before you send me on my way.
I’ve had a ten years’ wait

Since I’ve learned to love my baby,
Only let me stay,
Let me stay enough and be forgiven—

She descended, her back to the place
From which she had came
And the next of her days would be warmed
By the devil’s burly chortle,
By her midwife’s toil in the nursery of demons,
And the smoke from below,
Which rises through three worlds she’s seen
And scratches even the angels’ throats to coughing.