Testament

Her nails want some skin
to sink into.

Her jaw sometimes aches 
when she wakes up in the morning.

She'll fashion a foothold;
the back of her knee, maybe.

Twisting her wrists
around her own DNA,
she'll drag herself up

Base by base,
until she knows the length
of her rein

Touching her mistakes
the way Jesus touched
the lepers' feet 

Until she touches
an ending place.

There, 
she'll plant a flag.
Scatter some stars.
Update the myths.

Punch a black hole through the Milky Way.

Be put in her place. 

Pout.

Hurt.

Be over it, a bit.

Remind herself
again
that she is free to fail,
that freedom to fail
is everything.

Her religion
is doubt.

It changes her

Hourly.

Free Wheel

The evolutionary tree split
at the intersection
of what is
& what if.

That’s where we got lost;
that’s where they took a hike.
In the smudge of a serif, 
humans were off. 

That’s how a limb
loped on and up,
sticking its head
between the clouds,
where cities gleam 
and giants growl.

Sacrificing an impulse 
to devour and fuck
for a Reveille call
of more sacrifice.

Until— 

Civilization

But then—

A crack

And now—

Clouds pissing carbon
on the rest of 
the schmucks,
and if it’s not dark yet,
Cassandra's warming Taps.

So—


I mean—


Are we just—


Atlas shrugs;
they look away?   

When, exactly,
will what is 
become what is not
and never will be again?

Can we naturally select
for some sanity here?

Or are we doomed
to fall 
on our bottom line--
cartoon apes 
with spinning legs
as the snap of the trunk
ricochets--
blinking at so much earth
rushing up,
still having the gall to ask, 

My God, My God:
Why hast thou forsaken us? 

Deus Ex Machina

Close-up of Judith I by Gustav Klimt

Open me
with your mouth;

                        make me three
                        dimensional

I like the drama
of your lips

                       against the act
                       inside

I like the way 
you concentrate

                        light to one
                        specific place

And how you break  
the final wall  

                        to bring the curtain
                        down

Yellow No. 1 & 2

The frank, open face
of the daffodil,

replicating itself
in thickets and glades

like someone cloned
his own happiness

but forgot to turn
the sequencer off

A childish trick
that nonetheless

loosens my grudge,
bit by bit,

until it's lanced,
sliding down the blade

of this buttery, lovely
happy thing

----------------

Every breath,
my dandelion wish

to be swept up
by whim or lark

and disassembled,
sold for parts

to any puzzle
in search of a piece 

like this grass,
that leaf

the eyelash on
your cheek

Valentine's Day is for children (like us)

From Florilege des Amours de Ronsard by Matisse

You were a poem
fully formed

when I was learning
to read on my own

And if violets were blue
before we met

Roses are red
ever since.
     
And it really is 
as simple as that

Though you would
say it better,

my love   

Confession

(Detail from Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa. Photo credit here.)

I want to lick
the skin
of a toad

I want my eyes
to go 
big and dark

until the light
is all there
is

and blind,
I'll weep

an ignorance
of bliss  

Red

(Bullfight III by Pablo Picasso)

Still that naked child inside 
squeezing her eyes,
striving only
to please.

My first memory in life?
A time where I did not.

But the future sways
like the matador's cape
in Hemingway's hands
or Picasso's brush

calling me out
with every flash
and snap

of passion,
shame
and sacrifice.

 

Impression

sunrise to sunset

time is the iron shackle

and the last crusade

Star Stuff

(The z8_GND_5296 galaxy, via Hubble)

"Now they have a picture of a galaxy that's 30 billion light years away," she said, staring out the night window.

He didn't look up from the book. "Huh." 

"It's red," she said. 

"Red?"

"That's how we see it. Because of the spreading wavelengths across vast distances. Long wavelengths? Red. For this galaxy--with this degree of redshift--we're talking a birthday of some 700 million years after the Big Bang. When our universe was still just a baby."

"Is that so."

She turned to him. "Every atom in your beautiful body was forged from a dying star."

He looked up.

"There are more atoms in your body than there are stars in the known universe."

He put down the book.

"It makes you think," she said.

"What does it make you think?"

"About the notion of soul mates. Pheromones. Compatibility. Strange attractors. All that good stuff."

"How, exactly?"

"Maybe a greater percentage of the atoms in our bodies come from the same star. Born from the same cosmic womb."

"And so humans are attracted to one another based on some kind of atomic awareness of this. Some kind of pull . . . an unidentified energy, let's say."

"Why not?"

"But we met online. We were falling in love before our atoms could even 'sense' each other."

"True."

"So there goes that theory."

"No. They just found a way."

"Our atoms?"

"Smart little buggers, yeah?"

He laughed. "What's gotten into you?"

"It's Carl Sagan's birthday."

"Okay."

"Our world's just a pale blue dot, right? Our atoms traveled impossibly far and long to become us. They braved stellar winds and vast deserts of existential emptiness. What's the additional distance from Seattle to Saginaw when we're talking 30 billion light years?"

"You did wear a red dress in your profile picture."

"See?"

"No. Not actually."

She walked toward him.

"The heavier elements in our bodies came from the really big explosions. Like, supernova big."

"Is that so?"

She sat down on his lap. "Heavy."

"And hot."

"And home." 

"Is this what Shakespeare meant by star-crossed lovers?"

"Some of the atoms in my body, and yours, used to be Shakespeare."

"And Einstein?"

"Sure. E equals you and me . . . squared." She kissed him, then whispered in his ear, "My point is, we're all just recycled star stuff." 

He wrapped his arms around her and looked far into her eyes. 

"We're incredibly lucky." 


----

Happy belated birthday to Carl Sagan, who would have been 79 yesterday. Go watch his beloved Cosmos clip again. What an endless source of awe and poetry.

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the treats
that were in
the pumpkin

and which
you were probably
saving
for dessert    

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
a mother's love   

---

This one's for our daughter, who loves the original poem. I hope Halloween was sweet, and not too cold, on your end! Our kids took in far more Twix than tricks. 

(I only had one Milky Way. I swear.)