Passing
By twenty, you think you know something of pain.
But, take a body that can create stone,
solid but lifeless, yet shapely
create form but not breath.
Because this is not birth.
Think of stones as you think of
rivers and pressed discs of granite
easing their bones into a water-logged bed.
Waiting. Think of pain as
Waiting. Imagine a woman who goes
down by a river to gather stones in a basket.
Her body will carry them. This is what it knows.
Think of her as she walks beneath the stiff
lip of a rocky overhang crowded with moss.
Follow the woman who climbs
down into the earth to hurt, as though
this is all she knows.
Wait with her there.
Wait until down comes the hood
of some darkly smudged
cave.
Find her there.
Talk sweet. Use quiet
-pretty-
words.
After Twelve Hours at the Shelter
-For Brittiany
Meanwhile, October slinks by
like a cowering hound
who droop-tailed has nothing
left to bray.
I think of you when I
look into the faces of
leaves dressed in red satin
–those shocked females.
They leave their bruised
silhouettes and awkward skins
on the gray concrete too
when it rains.
I think of your face,
motley and desperate
You were fragile that first fall
before I knew you, little hound
With your voice box kicked out.
You were what October dragged
behind it.
I stopped to sit awhile today.
Those leaves, opulent as royalty,
smatter the slick path,
are tramped down by
the rain and the passerby’s
and their black umbrellas.
They think leaves were made
to walk on, despite the
sharp cobwebbed veins
crunching dutifully beneath
their feet.
You see, I had almost forgotten
what feet could do to the spindly
bone structure of a leaf (dying)
or a girl (dying) or a woman.
(Dead.)
But perhaps this walkway,
halted in late October
with spiny organisms
pressed flat and bleeding
with nothing left to protest
reminds me to walk on.
Their time has come to
return from the beginning.
Walk on and forget what
you can. If you can.
Crouch low, little hound
I’ll let you stay hiding. Maybe
broken but nose quivering
ear to the ground,
waiting for the first
shallow breath of December.
