does the voice of one who is dead gamble away the phantoms one knows
the eyes of the sheet you lowered over your body stop at dawn
more silence in life than life in the universe—sky, at other times
i am back in the house a child would know the instant sky goes to stone
when weeds make me their living path into a canyon too inessential to follow
i refuse to inherit anything smaller than god's journey through our rooms
from the portrait of the man born a slave i walk outside of healing
and what if the heart giving birth to the child prefers the hush and the heat of an attic
what lightning remembers will never wound is the moon returned to its river
leaning over the edge of august the horn of the wounding moon was true
who is ironweed staggers stars this hand i dipped in its spring
too dark to tell the sun i have seen where the last garden on earth has run
one chord of light searingly close but you learn the guide that guides the hand
and if i could find my child as a child again in the memory of blue Japanese iris
if i knew the name you called yourself would that rub sight into my eyes
captives are those who return and return—i am a potato surrounded by mountains
how do we gather whispers of blood as they fall from a buried shadow
from the trees there is a cry, saddled, waiting is the sound of the dark in our house
why do elderberries continue to dream until each drop of blood returns
keeping things whole in the absence of wind :: here's a body gathering its shell
call of the owl beside a dream :: or a pine taking leave of the night
years pass in a single white blossom i think no one looks in or out
how is it i know the escape of small winds has answered the prayers in my breath
in the early life of the mother of the rose you are the one afraid of flowers
learn to breathe water you will find the other forest
the other secret in the touch of a hand life in the absence of light