Jan 23, 2008

In the Meantime

Any Jill or Linda
bought frozen food, waited in the swish of bar-codes.
Gremlin fingers tickled the whatzis,
the where that couldn't be scratched here.

Sandalwood, vanilla, mozied through the blinds,
radios talked to geraniums. The Focus
ticked, its clean womb rifled of goods,
asleep and happy with itself.

Any Joan or Debra,
slippery in the bathwater, bead-oily,
sagged efficiently. Under a moon
that leaned forward like a drunken C

Patches or Princess yawned
and shook its chain.
Fireflies so
superfluously flickered no one noticed.

The mutter of palaver that meant something
hummed across mahogany, vibrations
with a message. Any Josh or Ashley
would surely unravel

those soft articulations--
but in the meantime
pressed their powered dollies in the guts
and heard the words.

Dawn Fancy

The sun pursued an old flame
in the garden, blond hands groped
through bushes, cloyed with gold
the flowers, and wings of birds.

This god's fingers splayed
across azure: light deltaed
like vessels in a blue body,
white blood, bright veins.

He touched heads of granite,
feathered and bow-armed,
gilded marble underwater,
shined the odd penny,

struck at last an ancient tree
as if with fire, wakened
a sleeper whose alarm whispered
in shivering laurel.

Eve

She watched the creature push
behind its smaller mate
in a green glade,

the ground seemed hollow
and deep under them, heavy
hooves shook her new bones.

She stretched on rushes later,
stroked the narrow side
and strong arm beside her,

mouth parched and empty.
Asleep, she saw red rind
sheened with rain, cool

and solid in her hand, saw clouds
drag heavily, gray,
eastward.

Faith and Knowledge

In a painting by Caravaggio
an angel floats, giving instruction,
at the shoulder of Saint Matthew.

The man is ancient, the angel a boy
if we judge by appearances;
but the Saint is the child, his knee

bent to the bench, his terror
painted as wonder. Closing the book,
I step out into the dark

where the wind troubles the grass
and the moving air seems
more visited than visiting.

Eventually it dies out, beaten
by a silence that seems obsessed
with itself, like a girl with a comb

leaning in a mirror. Somewhere
a screen-door bangs shut,
a sound that gives what's real

its necessary comfort.
If I turn suddenly, the angel
won't be there.