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Dedication

for Kate and Max Greenstreet

a pencil

for a wing-bone

LORINE NIEDECKER

I

I

In prison

In prison

without being accused

or reach your family

or have a family           You have

conscience

heart trouble

asthma

manic-depressive

(we lost the baby)

no meds

no one

no window

black water

nail-scratched walls

your pure face turned away

embarrassed

you

who the earth was for.

The whitewashed walls

The whitewashed walls, the chair

Were we nursed by the same wet-nurse?

The cups of tea undrunk

The crumb of tobacco on your lip

The poems in our speckled notebooks

where we warmed our hands

over the quick fire

Long before the woodstove’s wood and coal

shifted and settled and warmed us

Even months before

Even from miles away

The Leopard

Like a leopard on a shield, the space leopard

lay down beside the basket,

and slowly I threw all the papers in.

I was glad to throw them in.

Every coldness ever breathed

had left its trace elements inside me;

the oldest mother god’s most silent love

had left its trace: her

cave paintings black and gold

& red in the caves of my body.

In the end,

I laid them all down there at the leopard’s feet,

I was glad to lay them down.

Even all night long

Even all night long while

the night train

pulls me on in my dream

like a needle

Even then, down in my bed

my hand across the sheet

anyone’s hand

my face anyone’s face

are held

and kissed

the water

the child

the friend

unlost.

I was working

I was working on cleaning up a house

before I left it.

The longest work every year was Clean the house

before we moved.