to lie on its side no longer facing east
where in late summer the bull rises with its bright red eye
or is it more like a rock in the swollen stream millennia
to bind its layered parts then battered cleaved
then one half tumbled away
idiopathic is what they say to say
no evident cause no trigger no blame except to blame
the way the world winds down winds up again shifting particles
as easily as pollen in the wind
stars stone lichen glued to the stone a human hand
and so one hand withdrawn from the other hand
what had been paired a left a right
every cell divides
in order to multiply it’s where we began
SPRING
years of unearthing the rocks out of the field and soon enough
you’ve built a stone wall the longer the marriage
the less the need for trying to agree but we’ve agreed
what will happen at the end of it nothing
except the old immutable forms
like a shovel shared at the grave for texts
Ecclesiastes so the bereaved
can choose whether to believe
that death is a kind of hibernation this spring the groundhog
foraging in our yard was smaller thinner a strange
perpendicular crimp in its tail which proved
to the rational mind it was a different creature but look beloved
how by late summer it’s fattened out how its coat now gleams how
when frightened it also hurries into the barn
SLEEP
another heavy frost what doesn’t die or fly away
the groundhog for instance the bear is deep in sleep I’m thinking
a lot about sleep translation I’m not sleeping much
who used to be a champion of sleep
ex-champions are pathetic my inner parent says the world
is full of evil death cruelty degradation not sleeping
scores only 2 out of 10
but a moral sense
is exhausting I am exhausted a coma looks good to me
if only I could be sure there’d still be dreams it’s what I miss the most
even in terrible dreams at least you feel what you feel not what
you’re supposed to feel your house burns down so what
if you survived you rake the ashes sobbing
exhausted
from trying to not smoke I once asked for a simple errand
from my beloved who wanted me not to smoke he forgot unforgivable
I fled the house like an animal wounded enraged I was thinking
more clearly than I had ever thought my thought was why
prolong this life I flung myself into the car I drove like a fiend
to the nearest store I asked unthinking for unfiltered Luckies oh
brand of my girlhood I paid the price I took my prize to the car I slit
the cellophane I tapped out one perfect white cylinder I brought to my face
the smell of the barns the fires cooking it golden brown smell of my father