grasses are a small risk to ever speak only by prayer

lay down in the fire on the side of the defeated    wind that will never come

in the archive of the last word    of the weight of the rope    how ugly is flowering

only sky blowing into the eye of echinacea    ashes of black umbrellas

into the tides of being unsurprised    what have people of the island thrown away

as alert and undoing as the edge of the moon :: knife of my small life

my hand in wind that has lived out its life    the path between two deer

 a ginkgo leaf lifts above the sound    of those we loved being born

the kind of life i like best    the last day is astonished to find

when the white body of snow awakens    would you ask if there is hatred in its heart

the child you were whispers something forgotten    sunflowers stepping into snow

like surveyors of the original presence    ashes all come back

where sky is freshly dug and the rain is with its gray gloves on to uncovered voices listening

eating the lamp in america doesn't make it any darker

silence from her mouth white as a line no one may step over

prayer of the eye where it will die    arrow asleep in the air

who among us will hear the child who died before she could sleep

when did his bread begin to say    i can't eat your heart anymore

that the mirror grows stranger and stranger    is the name of the jail

bird at the edge of air    to find riches i didn't have

what to do next with basement and box    address of heartbeat no one can touch

when the funeral is borne away on a river    when the hope for what was lost doesn't end

hold the infant before deadened eyes :: what shall i do at the limit of the sea

how large the eyes grow when there is no sound    is the place on earth she loved

no trace of yes in water or blood    no name and no odor of wound

piano playing beneath invisible hands    as if there were dancers before there was water

soul called by name to sleep under the sea    is to end the end that is beginning

island :: bird in the memory of the first dawn    presence staring at an empty plate

this is the room where nothing is forgotten    the space of a mouth between two skins

first voice i remember was brightness coming back to be forever hungry in the moon

blood of soybeans and corn    crushed journey of all stars    only one i in ohio

saint in the subway is not sleep is not loveless    murmur without sun that lives on

centuries of my blood drink at the rim of a single empty sky

grief or bread :: how the child tried to fill the holes in her heart

between my hands where the white forests sleep    what the waters cannot sunder

as unlikely as a second dawn    as spilled blood to be misspoken    was the hand of the earth upon you

each day alive upon the island of dying    i walk the boundaries of a different sea