The smaller cat has caught a rat. Good on you,
I say, smaller cat. Caught a rat that would otherwise
be eating my oatmeal. Now put it down. Well of course
the cat doesn't put the rat down, the cat doesn't do anything I say.
Eventually I do my dishes as usual in the bathroom sink as usual
and I look down into the faucet and there's the cap
of a toothpaste bottle far down there, close enough to see
but too far to reach. It'll probably stay right there
till the building's torn down like the one next door.
There are construction workers in it clearing the debris and they use 
modern ploys to hoot at women, like "Miss, you are a beautiful 
New Yorker. My friend here thinks so too but I wanted 
to tell you that." His boots are hard and heavy.  
There was a guy on the train with a cowboy hat and cowboy boots 
and a vest which read Federation of Black Cowboys. 
His beard was shot with steel-wool fibers of silver 
and he had little, dark eyes, not unlike a wolf's 
and very unlike a cow's. His eyes were on his hands
he had a candy bar in his hands and he was breaking it 
into pieces, little pieces, and putting each
in his mouth like this. But his eyes every so often
would lift to the dark windows where sometimes there are lights
but sometimes not. Well I look out the door and the cat
is nowhere to be found but the rat is torn in half,
small body and twisting tail here in the hallway, head
and little forearms resting peacefully in the living room.
The bigger cat walks in and looks at me. Don't look at me,
he says. Don't look at me either, I say. Let's not
look at anyone, we say. I take a shower.

1. April




Stepping
her
knees lifted, high
bare toes off the ground 
and down again 
with the slow
hesitation
of a bird after a storm, hopping
from muck to muck, lonely
for worms.

The way her feet pain
from the rocks in the mud.
The way the trail of her dress
is dressed in mud.
The way her eyes are down as if
she looks for a lost child
welling
in her footprints.

This way to May a somber
high-kneed romp. The birds
a dirge. The rocks
have cut her heel.

Dirt clings
to the new mouth
like orphans. 




2. Rose




A candy sky. A drink
of sunset. The summer daughter
Rose de Young, her hands absolving
landscapes, so sings.
Rabbits in the grasses. A sky
imbibed, the dark's intoxication.
So stumble in your evening.
So wait for fireflies.
Little light kisses
for your eyes.

A wait, a night.
A wing, a way.
A curved horizon, trees hiding between stars 
and so surprised. Another sister 
dances, unseen, but the wind 
is for your body not your mind. When the eye
is drunk on darkness she walks
beside you, out of sight.

When pools of streetlamps drape shadows
with laughter.
When wind and light pass by
unrecognized.
Then so. 




3. Calais




A tower adds a cloud to the sky
already ripe — if we could suffocate
in air, if we could fill and thrash
in whiteness here we would
and rain
rivered, calia verde

grey boat parts the sky
in deeper grey, rolling
as the earth passes, waving
as the earth feigns
skyness

	calia, boat on the river, pearl
of a cloud, a glow then

will slow
supplant the buildings
carved from air

a dying the wind passing touches
a dying falls wet and cold.




4. Selene




She knew the colors 
I had left in me, things 
unscraped from the dark sides 
of mind, carefully 
extracted each and looked,
with cold fingers on my 
casualties — a disc 

the color of cream arises. 
Some Selene, some bright thing 
saved for winter, for maternity. 
A silence weaned on midnights,
violence of geese flocking 
that flee, they flee. 

Young as birth, round as fear, 
white as the loss of identity, 
slow like wishes 
bright as night can be. 

Bare in the light, the colors seep 
to a star-dotted sea. 

Glow and shadow all that's left 
of me.

Shadow and glow a broken me or a 
we.

	1.

and there a half of you in the wind
and the rain pours down and pouring
no strong set of birds to make you
prime it breaks the red of you out
you cry on heaven:

mercy, love. as each rib strained 
against breath between raindrops
full like your eyes open
so overflow

and there it beats the love out of you
and violent then you call and cry out
as love is emptying in rushes to fill


	2.

redding clouds rising tall slow
faces beaming back your nothings
violet burning through your silvered plate
with no image		chase

the bubbling mercury down your spine:
not it, in the green leaves
the thousand tickling strains of grass
not you on the hill and round clouds

twirling their insides forward
distincts with no distinctions rushed
as yours drips back and out, love
what is murdered by love