I saw the light on in the woodcutter’s hut and walked
through the leaves and knocked on his door not knowing
he was there on the porch sitting in the dark a blanket
across his lap he said What. I said I’m alone I can’t start the
fire. My nose dripped. I had no gloves. I thought it would be
warm, my first month in the woods. I just stood there. He got
up and I followed him into the cabin, my cabin, and he took
the box of long matches from the mantel and showed me.
How dry the wood had to be. Stacked just so. Blow. Smoke
in my eyes. How it stung. Squatting side by side I sniffed the
cold coming off him how long did he sit outside like that in
the dark it was so dark. The fire swelled. After a moment he
left. Sparkle.

Snap.

And the burn

ORBIT

ORBIT

I’ll speak just once, here,

about my father.

You were nothing like him:

he was small, lean as a young tree

and scared. He sat in corners

and cleaned his glasses

and tried to smile. He was almost never

there. I mean in his head he wasn’t.

He liked to see me

with my pens, at the kitchen table:

he said I would be

a great artist

though he was an insurance man

who couldn’t name a single painting.

He told me

before he disappeared

about the way he thought

I should love.

Don’t marry, he said,

the one you like best.

That’s the way to keep it, you know.

Friction

slows a thing down.

Love him

from a distance. And he’ll always

be yours.

I said, Yes Dad.

I was ten and uncomprehending.

A year later he left the house

with his pipe and his favorite

shirt

and was found

hanging in a garage

two states away.

I wonder whose heart

he didn’t dare hold close.

I mean,

other than mine

THE DANCE HALL

THE DANCE HALL

I knew no one. A bar at the edge of the wood and music I

hadn’t heard music in a week or seen a human face and

there was yours, a miracle, selling tickets at the door; you

took my hand and stamped it black. Jade eyes into mine

and silver hair, older than any man I’d ever thought was

beautiful, your beauty the first thing that hurt and I moved

into the room solid with plaid shirts and me in my black

dress so this is the country. I drank a cup of punch and ate

almonds from a plastic bowl and you came and dug your

hand next to mine wiped your salty fingers on your hip

and looked down at my shirt unironed and crooked teeth

agleam in the yellow light. I didn’t spend a minute saying

no. You led me through the music, under your arm, pressed

against your side, sweat slicking us wherever we touched. I