seven

i suppose i should
be grateful for plums
and oranges and
january dates

for a brown breach of dried pampas
slicing white landscape

for a flustered jay
and the long, cool shadow of a cooper's hawk

and for the
number
seven

which through winter, has
trilled insistent

begging to be written

naked me; all breasts
and eyes, seven
a steamy mirror

head tilted, i

finger dripped lines
and seven spreads

like the spindly legs of an avocado pit- pegged over a water tumbler

or cancerous fingers rooting the lengths of my own soft tissue

i sit with pen
and scribble
seven- flipped
sideways still it offers nothing

answers no prayer
gives no concession

i wonder if i am meant to write the

seven times seven hundred times- i walked
through snow inside your footprints

they were larger
than my own

you held my hand


or it could be that i am to write seven shoes
tossed in a back closet- an odd one alone, disconnected- tongue flapping
like a mother’s final breath

or maybe i am to write seven sisters
clustered in the heavens- huddled erogenous;
little explosions - seven small gasps

or even the seven reasons
to ignore reason- i wonder about
a lapse of judgment
a growling dog; chained to chain link fence

seven nights
without food

seven days
of no shelter

i doodle another seven and study implications; lucky i think as i trace a singular line without lifting my pencil

lucky i tell myself as i digest the timing

it all seems so deliberate
the dog, the grass, the date, the spindley fingers reaching

perhaps after january blows her final gust i will discover

seven maps leading to
seven routes

all of which
a brother may have chosen instead










m

the movers

when i sleep they rearrange furniture

and when i wake with my head still deep in the pillow
i hear them; the low pitches of night
damned and spent, muscling a table from foyer to den,

scraping a chair across floorboards



just before dawn, i hear the chiding ping

of glasses clinking














.

a poet thanks a grandmother she never knew

ribbed vessels which
carried my grandmother's

mother from france to old quebec
carry me too- to my next
next

inside the lines of
my own hands a needful cargo
settles and delivers itself

into the breach of a midday moan

her cheekbones flatter my face

and my breasts are hers too
passed down, they rise; shrines to a french maiden; two peaked

sisters raised side by side, two shining moons plumped fat with want

and her uterus; a wave

filled ocean - bore a pine ship replete with

white canvas sail which delivered me full

to the language of here

dear glen,

i settle deep into a new brown couch
one on which you

would have surely claimed and sprawled

were you here to either claim or sprawl

truth be told, as your taps and knocks ebb
and the tea kettle whistles only a boiling point

i miss your impositions
your expansive banter

i think of you brother; the queer smile of discernment
your steady doll eyes
the slow mix of man and boy - you; who were your father's last leg
his last long step

his spilled word slopped against a back splash

were you the sponge, the slush wrung and drained

or just an upside down attempt at right-sidedness

i wonder, would i know you now;
a man-bear trapped and gnawing a limb, or perhaps a collector of forces and word
a man traveling the reasonable pathway
of a reasonable man

and at night, were you still here, i believe you would stretch into a long
graying fence, rowed beside your son's bed

his wooden planks held firm

i wonder;
knowing what
you know

now
would you
still choose
to write this
life?

and in the deepest dark hours, in this january shiver,
inside dusty, static air

do you hover close and read me writing you?



love,

me

on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of your death...

silent all these years

Well I love the way we communicate
Your eyes focus on my funny lip shape
Let's hear what you think of me now
But baby don't look up


The sky is falling



Tori Amos

her mouth is a cave
where miners once gathered
and left behind sorry, gray death

low in her clavicle still, a deep throated

canary whistles a yellow song

too pretty to die
it cries

too pretty to die

her lips; in low light

open like dried petals
blown in a breeze- she smells like he stinks

and never flinches beneath a stone shower

instead lifts her face
to catch a pebble with her tongue

slides teeth over lips
and gnaws clean a fresh layer

while wondering how much flesh would have to peel
before she could completely disappear

my hands are
narrow passages
she muses

the length of your arms; their only reach

he chuckles
and zips his trousers

flips a towel in her direction

licks dried lips; hard
[his or hers is unimportant]

do you remember

the long hallway,
splintered floors on your bare feet
and the small black cat
i kicked when it pissed on the couch?

she remembers, (yes) too
the phantom voice, a child's laugh, a painted virgin

embellished on wood
outlined in gold

and moon flower grown thick;

choking rhododendron

in the neighbor's back yard