like wildflowers, which have nowhere else to grow.

Then a blue panther, a twenty-six-cent stamp

from Florida, for postcards

Then a catalpa leaf curving

from its huge curving stem, the leaf

a little broken in its passing

from the West down to the East

and the note: I found this leaf

on my way to the Post Office.

Then Lucy you: hominid? sapiens?

sapere, to taste, be wise

Your skeleton

standing about, like a wildflower…

Lucy, what you want,

that I will do.

To hear you now.

Your poem. (But you need nothing.)

The deer and the wild turkeys

that draw close now to hear you.

My life is for.

In its language.

Your voice.

I can’t tell cold from heat.

Anxiety

dust.

Death, no

not even dust.

Your Picture

Brown museum hair, brushed the way they brush it there,

brow lit from inside,

intelligent eyebrows,

a slightly wrinkly nose, a little flat—

brown woman, I want your nose, your

cheekbones of light—I was brown, I got white—

Your large and friendly mouth, half-open

in a half-smile,

like the Dalai Lama once, in a procession,

his smile “What am I doing here?”

But Lucy

your eyes.

So I gave all I had to the poor, standing about

like wildflowers.

Lucy,

the spider moved, last night,

and again, this morning…

I wonder Do you sleep and wake

where you are now? Do spiders

hibernate? Do they lay eggs

in webs on windowpanes?

You must know

everything.

Enter the sweet Why

Don’t entreat it

or question why

whistle why

whisper why

was sweetness done to you

done unto you

What I wanted most      the mother

has come to me

Will she stay in my ear? Lucy

Is it you?

Still all night long my

Lucy I entreat you

I will not let thee go except thou bless me.

Outsider Art

Martín Ramírez,

be with me!

“It looks just like a vagina,”

a bystander said. Yes

it is a vagina, with trains, and tunnels,

and like in the great cathedrals,

a clitoris, a starry one,

and a womb, jaunty Martín being born, Lucy

did you hear animal-woman

screams in the night?

Were you afraid?

Was it you last night

your scream over and over

as you give birth?

How did you pray, Lucy?

You were prayer.

Your hands and toes.

When writing came back to me

I prayed with lipstick

on the windshield

as I drove.

Newton made up with the world,

he had already turned himself

into gold, he was already there.

Skeleton Woman,

in    down

over    around

Bless:

from the Old English blētsian.

Its root is blood.

My head is at your window, Lucy, at your glass,

But we offer nothing but money now,

we beam it to each other near and far,

But you are my skeleton mother,

I bring you

coffee in your cemetery bed.

This morning I miss most of all you, Martín,

and her who when you were born