Caesurae
The moon is half: an emergency
I am: the madeleine in shadow
invoked but not enveloped: born
with blue eyes my color
redoubled: a guessed-at form with
an opal in her throat. I was
told the scratch would close but
on the cliff of this tongue
opening on knowing: scores rise
to one corona. But were
mountain flowers still inside me
spitting filigree: were these
holes fact and not space between:
a chain of annotations for
spark and finish: the line of salt
a diary: I need no pale word
Hearsay
My friend explains a tense
in her native tongue reserved: for
hearsay: for what has passed
that you didn’t yourself witness but
pass in speaking: we mistake
hands & leaves picking the last
grapes & grapes gone to raisin
under September moon: asking if
there are circumstances when
it’s best to keep yourself in: here’s
another: these have dried around
their seeds and glow: now fingerprints
on fruit skin: not a far color
from the stains we wake to find but
sticky sweet still: is it better
to be understood or to be loved
Susurrus
Some things are true & diffuse:
white in the sea, in the thrashing:
in the horizon opening over
the wind we squint against &
knuckles aching. The same white
sea the whites of our eyes: snow
follows I don’t: want to believe
there’s nothing left now to open.
I want to bare my throat: the most
personal of the personal: things
we watch for the end: or a means
some invisibility: this is how to
make a line toward something.
Come from it every moment:
again: winter unsaid winter
unending. What risk is there
in quiet space: the white I
need it. I open an envelope.
A friend illustrates five ways.
The figures wine on white paper.
I put it on my wall. Light flashes
back out: we’ll wake in the crack
between never and now: hum in
bone: hold so things will come.
No one can explain the dawn:
the air paused & time elapsing.
What winter isn’t open: always:
what isn’t open that is: always
I breathe the air outside my chest
& whirl & fill & the day quiets
a quiet space sometimes: you
can only whisper to yourself