Recently in 1998 Category
Wind gusts smooth the field of long grasses
bend the tall thin blades to their green-silver underside;
Dip and ripple. Swish and splash.
The breeze blows grass into sea.
We dive headfirst into cool greenness, arms part
blades with each stroke, legs sweep past jade stalks
that curve in our wake. We pause for watery kisses,
tongues tasting salt and green sweetness.
I could swim here for hours with you, slice through
shining wind-waves as the air rushes above. But you
begin to feel the familiar pressure, the need for breath:
it draws you to the surface with brutal buoyancy.
You explode into air, suck lungfuls into empty chambers
as I wait suspended in familiar green below. I wrap fins around
your ankles, pull you down into the swell, know the short time
you can spend submerged, the necessity of breath.
Small bubbles leave your lips, travel toward
the surface. And I wish for a current to catch you,
endow you with the gift of gills,
draw the mammalhood from your blood.
bend the tall thin blades to their green-silver underside;
Dip and ripple. Swish and splash.
The breeze blows grass into sea.
We dive headfirst into cool greenness, arms part
blades with each stroke, legs sweep past jade stalks
that curve in our wake. We pause for watery kisses,
tongues tasting salt and green sweetness.
I could swim here for hours with you, slice through
shining wind-waves as the air rushes above. But you
begin to feel the familiar pressure, the need for breath:
it draws you to the surface with brutal buoyancy.
You explode into air, suck lungfuls into empty chambers
as I wait suspended in familiar green below. I wrap fins around
your ankles, pull you down into the swell, know the short time
you can spend submerged, the necessity of breath.
Small bubbles leave your lips, travel toward
the surface. And I wish for a current to catch you,
endow you with the gift of gills,
draw the mammalhood from your blood.
I
Found a finger in the snowslush:
a perfect digit with an iced-blue knuckle
and purpleblue nail, stiff and pristine.
Thought a finger would be useless
without a hand, but it made an impeccable
utensil for writing names in the snow.
II
This past Autumn our pines and spruce trees
were weighted down with an abundance
of cones: heavy brown omens of a long
and treacherous Winter, of dangerous drifts,
and bluecold faces and fingers.
III
Mittened hands shake snow
from a girl's hat and coat and marbled skin,
poke fire into her hypothermic limbs;
their eyebrows are stretched into question marks
but their eyes lock in truth, knowing,
as they drag her from the bloodstained snow,
gloveless and missing one finger.
Found a finger in the snowslush:
a perfect digit with an iced-blue knuckle
and purpleblue nail, stiff and pristine.
Thought a finger would be useless
without a hand, but it made an impeccable
utensil for writing names in the snow.
II
This past Autumn our pines and spruce trees
were weighted down with an abundance
of cones: heavy brown omens of a long
and treacherous Winter, of dangerous drifts,
and bluecold faces and fingers.
III
Mittened hands shake snow
from a girl's hat and coat and marbled skin,
poke fire into her hypothermic limbs;
their eyebrows are stretched into question marks
but their eyes lock in truth, knowing,
as they drag her from the bloodstained snow,
gloveless and missing one finger.
She has never known this need:
to feel the texture of your tongue trace
a river over the topography of her shoulders,
to feel its journey over the pebbled path of her spine
mapping out each vertebra,
to feel the warm dampness of your breath
rise in clouds around each slight elevation of bone.
She has never known this desire:
to feel your mouth move over each square of skin, measuring,
to feel your lips search for freckled landmarks
as you chart each contour,
to feel your teeth mark out a legend
on the white expanse of her back, tasting
her geography, her terrain.
to feel the texture of your tongue trace
a river over the topography of her shoulders,
to feel its journey over the pebbled path of her spine
mapping out each vertebra,
to feel the warm dampness of your breath
rise in clouds around each slight elevation of bone.
She has never known this desire:
to feel your mouth move over each square of skin, measuring,
to feel your lips search for freckled landmarks
as you chart each contour,
to feel your teeth mark out a legend
on the white expanse of her back, tasting
her geography, her terrain.
Dying highways
are grey gouges in the landscape, frozen
furrows cut through brittle November cornstalks
and fields of autumn-shocked grasses. Exposed,
out here, the wind swallows all sound,
hardly hindered by isolated spikes of trees with
limbs like bent nails. It blows constant, swells
with empty roaring, slaps at my face,
at brown barn-planks and cedar rails.
The cold sting lingers. I miss
the closed comfort of concrete, of brick and stone
warmed by the breath of a thousand exhalations
where buildings channel voices
and noises are funneled between high-rises, flowing
into warm rivers over sidewalks which have absorbed
the dust of infinite strides, rushing
toward lighted windows of cluttered cafes
where conversation germinates.
are grey gouges in the landscape, frozen
furrows cut through brittle November cornstalks
and fields of autumn-shocked grasses. Exposed,
out here, the wind swallows all sound,
hardly hindered by isolated spikes of trees with
limbs like bent nails. It blows constant, swells
with empty roaring, slaps at my face,
at brown barn-planks and cedar rails.
The cold sting lingers. I miss
the closed comfort of concrete, of brick and stone
warmed by the breath of a thousand exhalations
where buildings channel voices
and noises are funneled between high-rises, flowing
into warm rivers over sidewalks which have absorbed
the dust of infinite strides, rushing
toward lighted windows of cluttered cafes
where conversation germinates.
His skin was green. Not the green
of trees and wild grasses.
Pale greyish-green. Celadon.
The death makeup had glazed him
into pottery, smooth and shining,
glowing porcelain green.
I wanted to place my hands on his face
on the cool ceramic surface,
his wrinkles etched deep
into the bone and ash:
designs of age and adventure
swirled into the clay with steady hands.
Gorgeous and cool mint-coloured skin
varnished and hardened into death,
he had become his own beautiful urn.
of trees and wild grasses.
Pale greyish-green. Celadon.
The death makeup had glazed him
into pottery, smooth and shining,
glowing porcelain green.
I wanted to place my hands on his face
on the cool ceramic surface,
his wrinkles etched deep
into the bone and ash:
designs of age and adventure
swirled into the clay with steady hands.
Gorgeous and cool mint-coloured skin
varnished and hardened into death,
he had become his own beautiful urn.
The birds arrive at 7:30 exactly
swoop down from above the apartment building
in flocks from the east, vast and trembling;
darting upward, they catch air currents
in perfect choreography, bank left
and dart downward. Thousands move in,
plummet into the treed expanse below
in a swell of chirping, a constant squawking chorus.
I look down from the balcony onto trees:
leaves and limbs bounce from the gentle weight
of so many birds. They dart and dive into leaves,
move from branch to branch in graceful arcs
like fish leaping in and out of green waves.
My voice cannot climb above the crescendo of bird-song,
the noise obliterating traffic, neighbour's TV;
it suffocates the sounds of engines and music,
their vibrating voices amplified by trees
and the distension of air
like a swollen stomach full of fish.
I wonder how they know that it is precisely 7:30
night after night, what alerts them to the time,
draws them to the same sea of trees. How do they
know when to gather in flocks that fan out over twilit
sky when to dive into waves. What beautiful instinct
to know when to turn into a fish.
swoop down from above the apartment building
in flocks from the east, vast and trembling;
darting upward, they catch air currents
in perfect choreography, bank left
and dart downward. Thousands move in,
plummet into the treed expanse below
in a swell of chirping, a constant squawking chorus.
I look down from the balcony onto trees:
leaves and limbs bounce from the gentle weight
of so many birds. They dart and dive into leaves,
move from branch to branch in graceful arcs
like fish leaping in and out of green waves.
My voice cannot climb above the crescendo of bird-song,
the noise obliterating traffic, neighbour's TV;
it suffocates the sounds of engines and music,
their vibrating voices amplified by trees
and the distension of air
like a swollen stomach full of fish.
I wonder how they know that it is precisely 7:30
night after night, what alerts them to the time,
draws them to the same sea of trees. How do they
know when to gather in flocks that fan out over twilit
sky when to dive into waves. What beautiful instinct
to know when to turn into a fish.
January's fingers always find me
as I tread warily over a crust of snow,
brittle and vulnerable as old bones. His arthritic digits,
crippled with cold, ache to clutch my warm skin.
It always begins as a blue-veined fondling, then the sudden
shackling of ice-handcuffs. His biting breath lifts my scarf
from my neck, forces its way under my collar,
rushes down my shirt.
I want to sprint across the barrenness, to suck
breath after cold breath as he thrusts his icy tongue
down my throat. January's fingers press into the back of my head,
numb my skin and skull. Then his arctic hardness
slams against me.
as I tread warily over a crust of snow,
brittle and vulnerable as old bones. His arthritic digits,
crippled with cold, ache to clutch my warm skin.
It always begins as a blue-veined fondling, then the sudden
shackling of ice-handcuffs. His biting breath lifts my scarf
from my neck, forces its way under my collar,
rushes down my shirt.
I want to sprint across the barrenness, to suck
breath after cold breath as he thrusts his icy tongue
down my throat. January's fingers press into the back of my head,
numb my skin and skull. Then his arctic hardness
slams against me.
