... (xxvii).

the tide of pink

and burning yellow

rolling down the slopes

--did you see it?

the windows glowing

along the crest

of the canyon

--the lights winking

like eyes opening

blinking away

the light--in the clear hour

before the shadows come

or did you sit--in the gnarled

shade of the oaks, the banked

shadow--of the eucalyptus

crack one astringent leaf

between your fingers?

--saw the echos of the day's end

glancing off the papery trunks

flickering at the edge of the branches

in the deeper darkness welling up

from the bunched roots?

why don't we walk

where the sidewalk

turns to shadow, why do

I follow the pavement rising

and falling above the buildings

alone--while you sit in crowded

silence--watching the light fall

through rigid fingers?

Not gracefully...

... and not quietly, neither (pace Mr. Dylan).

---

the lasting hour--this one

we must crouch

as the guns thunder

your chest would shake

--in a silent room

at the tumult

--close your eyes

to the clicking

the hum of voices, be still as

the hills gilded by the light

of the mortars--close your eyes

--to shut the night in

descend, into the dark

fields within you, where the bullets

snap under the stars

--let them talk peace... let 'em talk it

and stand there in the white light

hands raised--and hopeful

close your eyes

and deny them

and give yourself unto the trenches

--you will die at war

salt

Sin-eater eat your sin
--dissolve it
as I lick the salt off your skin
and it burns, bitter
chalky ash of the seas
that have passed through you—your arms
have become the shores
of your desire

this is the only ablution waiting
how long did you walk
--with the asphalt melting below you
to watch the dry hills shimmer
in the heat, grass waving
in the still basin of the sky
--and I am waiting

we—have been washed clean
by our own tides, have tumbled
and spun among the waves rolling

across us—we have hung
atop the rollers—to grasp at
the sky—we
--have become strange and quiet
half-polished, unhallowed—rueful ghosts
with still-breathing bodies
--let me lick the salt from your skin

... (xxvi).

the moon watches from the corner of her eye

the night opens like a door

and the hills stand high

in sharp outline,

behind her sloping gaze

--eyes you, waiting

if you'd walk in these halls, then

you must go forward also

quick--in gleaming outline

in flashes

let us walk

through the shadows falling

off the tile

sprawled across the pavement

leaning, grinning--against the stucco

with the city padding between us

you're a simple soul, eh?

that makes you lucky

--you don't know what you can't do

no dancer--you go running

trade skill for distance

since I'm having trouble denoting "forward"

I'm taking the graceless slapping

of your sneakers--as the echo of the walls

here--to delineate the shape

of the rooms that lie before me

... (xxv).

speak to yourself

in foreign accents--repeat your thoughts

in some other language, mumble

in the words you knew--before you knew words

to the ones who came before you,

leaning out from the shadows, spun round

behind the columns, the doorways

the first one who hid--behind a boulder

from what they could not see

whisper, what they whispered above

clouds of incense, through sheets

of smoke, choking out the shapes

of buildings, and street names

as they watched the fire feeding

--etched the script across

the film clouding their

eyes--sounded the letters

like beacons, in the hanging

fog, to sound the bulk

of the lies, the slope

of the memories

and when the wind

whipped free of the hillsides

it met them in cadence, but

when the air is still--it pays

to bow your head, to mumble

under the shade and shelter

of your eye-lids--it pays

to trace the figures small