fairfax

--and no, you can't say,

even the trees escaped the winter unscathed

and my reflection hangs

shaggy and spindled

now, with the snow gone

the sun gleams on the peaks of my face, only

and no longer breaks itself on the ground

no more gleaming

--and I am not the man I used to be

with my jeans hanging in folds

what is to be done with returning sparrows?

what is to be done with the crocus

gnawing brightly at the dead leaves?

what--what

no, you place of lines

we slowly, in the cracked

mush of what you have torn

and ground and left for dead

at the margins

--each of us, pushes

each alone

--nah, the crocus can't walk

and the trees will flame and shake, again

but some of us--can rise for good

when the sky comes to the ground

again--

you--stiff where you lie

you will find, this pushing from the inside

by God--this blind pressure

will come to you also

and one step, ten thousand times

will grind you

back into dirt

... (xvi?)

raise this city, tonight

just now-- when the musky scent of day

still lingers, after she has left.

among the welter of lights

clogging the street

before the night comes to sunder things

from themselves,

and coyote's howl traces across the slopes

between the scattered lights-

before we must give the shadows their due

and let them eat out our legs for awhile.

spread across these streets, my friends

like the light on the clouds

and raise the sky up to the ground

flit

the sky as dark, and soft

as the down on the neck of a goose

and the wind the gentle

rustling of feathers

and as soft as the music

trickling through the door

and my thoughts too

flitting softly

across me

I was sitting

with the light drifting down

watching the mud on my boots

and fragments of you, all

lit, briefly, on the sill

next to me

wings twitching, and hopping

and rose lightly

gliding past the eaves

well you--you, all

clear skies to your passing

and may the night carry you softly

gap

and as always--

thirst returned sweetly

and I sipped a memory

inattentively

--lukewarm

it slipped across

the ache,

and fell away

--I am tired

only the thought

of heaviness

the pressure

of the nearby

--and the gap well-worn

to lean for once

and rest there