A Quiet Black Wedding
These arguments, the silences, were all a slow release
a practice run to make the death of us
this love we had, a little easier to finish.
We have come apart, the skin of us slide
to be faceless, naked, the bones of us stand free
our voices full of empty rooms
gas stations at midnight, last calls, hospital corridors.
Once we were a clean white piece of perfect paper
every time we argued, crumpled it, straightened it
it weakened
one day, not recognized, it was no longer of use
There is nothing wrong with that
We are so different in our wants, we have no choice
we are just dying
outside, fruit rots of the trees, fragrant, magnificent
the night is very soft.
The Broken must find the Broken
I cannot give up on her, she can be crude
stupid, demand
label every other woman as a threat
see safety in control, denial.
Not that it matters, I see it
as it is her brokenness, all I cannot unknow
that pulls me to her
how her father beat her, mother went cold
how despite it, because of it
she has shown a lifetime of resistance
insistence on transformation, remembrance.
She is more than she knows
she has become my amulet, charm
to keep the dead away, a root that keeps
growing in Winter, makes every day Spring
in defiance of everything, all facts, reason
all that is known.
She has shown me that compassion is love
I had no idea I had any.
At night when she thinks she is asleep,
next to me
I see her outside, a
lullaby of fire being drawn into her face:
How she wants to come in, unable to believe
that she is already here.
So Many Lengths of Time
Not long ago, when it rained, my son the goalkeeper would cry, stretch
his inadequate jersey
over his fingertips, solidify into statuesque misery.
Now, when the game moves from him in winter rain
the gap widens between him, his defense, the action being elsewhere
he knows it, the perfect limitlessness of each moment, what it means to be here
how much he has in front of him
he can see his future, his mother, father, wife to be
sister, his teenage friends, huddled around a wide screen tv
each immeasurable length of time, stacked so high
how they stretch, just for him, endless, painless, out toward the empty bleachers
over the
roof of the IHOP, the squat nineteen fifties’ veterans housing, into the pine.