From Cyanosis
IV.


This is the night, and in its dark folds
Her scattered skin shines starry blue
Each reaching its pale light through
The dark swaying cloth that holds

Each adrift, glowing itself out
Against the immeasurable sightless
Bounds, as if to flee its own brightness
Into another glow, and its timid doubt

Winks and waves, as the sudden wave
Of leaves is swept along with hair
And the dress dark sways. With fright

The blue pale fingers shaking crave
To lie holding, with her body bare
And framed with darkness. This is the night.

VI.

This is the night; she sits clothed in lamp glow
Alone, distanced, blued, hand held to her ear
She speaks, and into the phone she can hear
From its blue glow, the vapors of an echo

That responds to her the words she grasps
Through the light at her ear, the shield
To preserve, safe and concealed
From the gnashing silences. Gasps

Cry out from the black boiling brine,
And she cannot help but turn
Against the glow of her shelled light

She sees nothing, but lets a voice remind
Her of the sea and the gasp is the churn
Of a darkened wave. This is the night.

From Perennials

X.


Haven’t you grown tired of passing away?
When your blossoms whither behind your ears
Become brittle and fall, mutilated, our fears
Rise anew. It is this, then, that we wish to say.

Hold yourself still, would you stop if we did
If we ended this constant chase through empty
Spaces, as if our panting would make it be,
Make something grow in your wake, as you hid

Behind graying bark and withering leaves,
What is left: these bare outlines of limbs to reach
Up to the paling sun, and hibernal roots clutch

The azure frosted ground. We forget this much:
When you leave, when we stop, you will not teach
Silence, only what the wind clack of branches grieves.

From  Études

Saint Stephen:


This is the place he stood alone. See the faint stains
Like faded roses wind scattered across
The stones? This is where he waited for the first to toss
A stone. But as he noticed when the light wanes
The face of God smiling where the sun had grown

They stood there all shadowed eyes
And he, with his back to the walls was alone
And he saw each one holding piles of stone
That looked to him against the pink skies

Like petals. He smiled, there, and they gathered piles
Of them for him. Reds and pinks and purples cupped
In their trembling hands. And their eyes, he knew were smiles
Like the colorful petals, and he knew too the sky would erupt

With petals all around him. Here he waited, and saw the first one fly

It met the setting sun and dissipated, then slowly as if a sigh

Fell through the air, and more, and each felt soft like a caress, he
Laughed softly as they fluttered around his head, to see
That this was a wreath, and they fluttered around the place he would die.