Ceyx to Halycon

Ceyx to Halycon

A bright pitchfork of lightning
plunged into the deck.

I was not prepared for the impact,
the violence of the storm

clawing up our ship.
The boat let the ocean in, air sinking

beneath the water.
In all the commotion, I needed

something stationary
to hang onto, so I thought

of you, the bone
in your shoulder that my fingers

find, the birdlike
energy of your hands. When I wash

up onshore, my body
curled in the wet sand, waves reaching

over me like bedsheets,
I hope it will be you that finds me

so you can also know
every act of nature brings us together.

Under the Weather

Under the Weather

Rained on or snowed in,
the self backed into a corner
by illness, fatigue.

Unbidden, dominant,
sickness does creep in
like the weather.

Weight and wetness
perch on the shoulder,
drag soggy fingers

over your temples
and throat. We recede,
retreat. The body is full

of rooms, pockets
you can collapse into
to convalesce like country

homes or sea air.
See how easily our
constitutions swoon.

Meanwhile

Meanwhile

In this corner, seated family eating cereal.
In the other, a woman holding the phone to her ear with
her left shoulder.

No voodoo doll causality. No telemetry by which to distinguish
ripple from thrown rock.

In April, a volcano bellows smoke.
In New Mexico, also in April, it snows.

Take up any two thoughts,
and hold them both in frame.
Splitscreen. Meanwhile.

She falls down. He opens the saxophone case,
fingers grey with fifteen-year-old dust.

An elevator dings but stays shut.
Someone buys an umbrella.

Call it synchronized if you wish,
that any happening has a million unidentical siblings.
Just this and also this.

You Are Here

You Are Here

You are here, here you are
on the map before you,
represented by the red triangle.

The map talks right to you,
the city’s noise flattened
into placid shapes. The directive

is implied, you are here,
but want to go elsewhere,
so go on, turn left or right, scram.

Here you are, the map
and you, searching one
another equally. You lean toward

the map, it enters you,
fluttering behind your face.
This recognition will never leave,

best to accept this,
to hold the map close,
pat its flatness, saying, you are here.

Altar-Calming Objects

Altar-Calming Objects

What objects would you have me bury,
that the ground accept the stone sunken into it
and the building we place there not collapse.

You can have these colored glass marbles,
white and blue and rust. And this thread.
Here are spoons, and plates. Bowls.

Coins and gold leaf, so that you have
something shiny to hold in your soily
fist. What else would you like, because

you have it. House keys, for instance.
They are yours. Shoes and socks, matched
pairs, an aquarium with the fish still in it,

my blue winter coat and vertical blinds.
A lamp, a bicycle. I will not question your
needs, take these things. A refrigerator,

certainly, have it. Stainless steel, of course.
An armoire, here it is. The dresser, its drawers
full of my clothing, your clothing, yours to

do whatever you wish with. What will you do
with the things I give you, do they eliminate
that black-hole hunger rumbling in your gut.