Cosmology
with Madelyn, Giacometti, Bishop
or House of Menotti, and you draw two orbs
a face in a puddle of earnings ,
a charcoaled book of sketches, a weft of stairs
or soluble learnings, far from
Keats’s death house, the doorway of perhaps eternal
those hardening crypts, this way
hopeful with findings, collectings,
postcard-like lessons, with pairings
and liftings, this plum-sized artery,
crystal ball of soap,
with Madelyn, Giacometti, Bishop
or House of Menotti, and you draw two orbs
a face in a puddle of earnings ,
a charcoaled book of sketches, a weft of stairs
or soluble learnings, far from
Keats’s death house, the doorway of perhaps eternal
those hardening crypts, this way
hopeful with findings, collectings,
postcard-like lessons, with pairings
and liftings, this plum-sized artery,
crystal ball of soap,
showing of wonder and elation, the notion of marriage
and the tears laying in the transformed crib
of the place and the capability—
not negative, all of these bring light.
The heart is doubled. Once more, because of
how, in these separate heavens, the soul—
with its difficult sense of physical or not,
with its extremes of searching—
burdened, we struggle so long with
Bronte, who knew she wrote it in
the long procession of mores. (Now
one knows abandon).
With Allie and she is gracious, says thank you.
The gesture of art. The lull of absence
a lonesomeness only a whisper could wake
temporal affliction that
sews together the soul; nothing is
more beleaguering.
Only my nieces would deliver satiety
from a Michelangelo tour bus, would know
the exultation, of chisel or rasps—
enslaved in stone, how immense the feel of
learning anything.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SisterLogue
why can’t you write something happy?
I write purple, that’s happy
me as your bridesmaid, or
the blanket you brought
my first niece home in.
Why don’t you write something insightful?
I try. I write mourning or morning glories
that reminds me of us, young
and still living with each other.
Why don’t you write something I can read
to someone over dinner?
I will, one day when we are
no longer separated by miles
and it will be Thanksgiving
us both in our forties looking
like a perfect combination
of our mother and father
and you will pass the gravy
just like we always planned
and I’ll read you some poem
I wrote when I was too far way
to laugh with you in bed.
and the tears laying in the transformed crib
of the place and the capability—
not negative, all of these bring light.
The heart is doubled. Once more, because of
how, in these separate heavens, the soul—
with its difficult sense of physical or not,
with its extremes of searching—
burdened, we struggle so long with
Bronte, who knew she wrote it in
the long procession of mores. (Now
one knows abandon).
With Allie and she is gracious, says thank you.
The gesture of art. The lull of absence
a lonesomeness only a whisper could wake
temporal affliction that
sews together the soul; nothing is
more beleaguering.
Only my nieces would deliver satiety
from a Michelangelo tour bus, would know
the exultation, of chisel or rasps—
enslaved in stone, how immense the feel of
learning anything.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SisterLogue
why can’t you write something happy?
I write purple, that’s happy
me as your bridesmaid, or
the blanket you brought
my first niece home in.
Why don’t you write something insightful?
I try. I write mourning or morning glories
that reminds me of us, young
and still living with each other.
Why don’t you write something I can read
to someone over dinner?
I will, one day when we are
no longer separated by miles
and it will be Thanksgiving
us both in our forties looking
like a perfect combination
of our mother and father
and you will pass the gravy
just like we always planned
and I’ll read you some poem
I wrote when I was too far way
to laugh with you in bed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the night of February 17, 1864
On the night of February 17, 1864
and not in the daylight, but when the crews
of missions before you tramped through marsh, like shadow
or Palmettos, and you squeezed yourself through the hatch,
and the finality of metal slamming against metal, caused you to pause.
“It is only smooth water and when the tide is slack,
that any danger is immanent.” And you pluck a gold piece
from your pocket, for good fortune, say farewell,
to compass, crescent moon, angel oak, sweetgrass—
You deploy into the harbor, in your time capsule,
sunk twice before, iron cylinder.
Rutter, propeller, candle-lit tomb.
On the eve of your resurrection,
worm eaten, veritable coffin,
air bubbles rise to the surface.
“If those who so ignorantly or basely endeavor
to persuade that the monitors here are idle
could witness one night of such vigils,
they would feel disgraced
at having so wantonly traduced the officers and men,
who give themselves to such incessant
and hard service, a battle
would be far preferable.”
Let them think of your sea locked grave
as wreckage in our wharf,
and your forearms weighted with panic
turning the hand-cranks toward shore.
Or the pierced underbelly of Housatonic,
carrying life. You sunk with her,
iron torpedo, nose down burying yourself
for longer than a century, for as long as it took
for the mouth our bay to move you into the sun again,
undaunted.
Hunley, when this cruel war is over,
praying that we meet again, or at last,
and that all hands were not lost, but recovered.
That which escaped you, preserved you.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To Terrazin and Back and Back Again
Nothing ghostly here
the quiet of this hour.
What to acknowledge or leave unharmed:
piece of track, last transit, artist
made prisoner of
forever—that is despair—is Pavel.
The injustice of knowing his tattooed arm,
is not being able to unknow.
Because you told me to go
near enough to Prague
and how you would have knelt to pray
under the arch with him
had you been taught.
Pavel again, that sacrament he surrendered
survivor, his wife or just
her name over the radio broadcast.
And when she is gone he only was
walking under the same archway.
You taught me to pray here,
he shows me this yard of roses too red
and I ask how devotion can exist
he says , it does, plainly
Ride the train away from her again,
he says transit as though
the word doesn’t say death
But is artful. But is reunite.
A museum isn’t reason enough
No, not a reason at all for him
to be here for him
to walk the perimeter of this fortress, tired:
Work brings freedom.
It is her their shared knowing
It is the absence of her.
Is to be obligated by knowing
how it all must wait.
