Coon-song

Coon-song

the sun-warm bricks
in the blue twilight
              the tide-pool hour
damp and glistening
as the light ebbs, sun sunk
the hills are darker
the trees are darker than the sky
the sky washes the streets
in hazy shadows
drenches the glass and chrome
a new bird speaks
sparking between the branches
not the startled moan
of the mourning dove
or the sharp and certain caw
of the crows
--the song of a star flashing
             the squat row of houses,
paths snaking to the door
lights under the ferns
standing dark and solid
unsheltered
against the clear
depths of the sky
they rise, roofs slashed
with quicksilver
into a wild kind of glory

the dead thing

it lumbered over to us--the dead thing

and stretched itself across the table

when it began to sicken, you said:

look what you've done, no wonder it's dying

look what you've done.

when I was sure it was dead--I went

to lose myself for awhile

I left you alone with the dead thing

and you knew it was dead

without me to chastise,

you were left alone with the stillness

Now it sits between us

nibbling ghostly fur

we could take our recent wisdom, you know?--

and grieve in each other's company

history

worlds rise and fall and finally

recede like the mountain

in the rear-view mirror

the future stretches out

hazy and tract-less

like the sere fields 

through the frost on the windshield

I wonder which fields you see

over the steering-wheel?

I'll not grieve over ruins 

there are armies marching on the sidewalk

states rise and are lost

behind the windows of the apartments

over the storefronts

your headlights glow like a torch

cities burn all along the freeways

--they build cathedrals

between each sip of coffee

--will rather rejoice

that the streets are wild

with histories

tragedy

that people are sacred

and for this holiness: they suffer. 

this is the tragedy--

if one man is everything

then every man counts for nothing

this is the tragedy--

but Athena burned out the furies

and Antigone buried her dead.

wooed

how could I think--that you didn't love me?

how could I think that I was on sufferance?

the eucalyptus clasps my eyes

and draws them up into its shaggy embrace

they are passed,

from limb to limb

                        up the hill

     the grass, less proud

cradles my boots

soft as flesh over bone

the shade brushes my shoulders

I see your teeth 

in every flash on a windshield

every glimmer

              of dusty wings

your lips cannot be far

they are all around 

        when I could see nothing but my sorrow

running along the lines of the gutters

I wept only with my pores

and the breeze swept across them

bringing only grief--sweet and chill

      --you were kissing me

      in the dark behind my eyes

---

vision fades

memory unravels

but the lingering pressure

will drive me home

night

my shadow waddles before me
        like a discomfited pigeon
  it walks beside me
like a mocking thought
a canny truth creeping
the corners of my mind
    to steal into form
I run fingers through it
and it curls upwards
we stand, toe-to-toe
old enemies,
     and walk side-by-side
and pause, at the gate
the window glows, yellow
and the neighbors murmur in Cantonese
the trees darker, much darker
than the sky
and across the street
a column of light, bright and clear
and above it, a low star
faint and flickering
              the fronds shatter
the light next-door
cup a new constellation
in their papery darkness
we pause, at the gate--
and draw together,
faced with the soft challenge
of the night.

cloud

the late afternoon
     baked and burnt
soft and clear
the sky, too blue
buildings, shadowed
   or glowing
trees, rustling
     --a cool snatch
ambling through
  the leaves--
  from the tang
almost like wine
the rising warmth
   suffuses
clear-headed, I
know the sky passes
over the ground
     comes down to it
I walk, where
the clouds were, recently