like in the castle gardens, where jackdaws waited

glaze-eyed along the walls for a taste of new—

of figs unsweet yet, yet beryl-bright

enough for wonder.

Not jackdaw, but not different, I—how I destroy myself

on even the least of the sweetest things—

the salt of her burned not long on my tongue,

but like stars.

I never meant to break—but love,

the hymn and bells of her.

Even now, there are nights I climb the narrow stairway

to an apartment at Hradčany Square, where a door opens

to a room and the shadowed fig of her mouth—

cleaved sweet open, and in me ringing.

If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert

I will swing my lasso of headlights

across your front porch,

let it drop like a rope of knotted light

at your feet.

While I put the car in park,

you will tie and tighten the loop

of light around your waist—

and I will be there with the other end

wrapped three times

around my hips horned with loneliness.

Reel me in across the glow-throbbing sea

of greenthread, bluestem prickly poppy,

the white inflorescence of yucca bells,

up the dust-lit stairs into your arms.

If you say to me, This is not your new house

but I am your new home,

I will enter the door of your throat,

hang my last lariat in the hallway,

build my altar of best books on your bedside table,

turn the lamp on and off, on and off, on and off.

I will lie down in you.

Eat my meals at the red table of your heart.

Each steaming bowl will be, Just right.

I will eat it all up,

break all your chairs to pieces.

If I try running off into the deep-purpling scrub brush,

you will remind me,

There is nowhere to go if you are already here,

and pat your hand on your lap lighted

by the topazion lux of the moon through the window,

say, Here, Love, sit here—when I do,

I will say, And here I still am.

Until then, Where are you? What is your address?

I am hurting. I am riding the night

on a full tank of gas and my headlights

are reaching out for something.

Snake-Light

I can read a text in anything.

To read a body is to break that body a little.

When my desert reads a life out loud

it takes the body down, back to caliche and clay,

one symbol at a time—

the blue milk of an eye sipped empty,

a wasted tongue rewinding to its vacant throat,

each vertebra unlocked and dragged beneath the sand.

The body after itself, the after-body—

undressed to its banquet,

for yellow jackets and butterflies. Yes, butterflies

nourish on the nectar

and the wrack—ascending, descending,

against the snake’s broken body, in adoration.

The devotional fervor-work of revision.

Let’s say it’s all text—the animal, the dune,