Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003

Butane

Who died? Who died? Who died? My Mother’s Body, My Professor, My Bower Who died? My mother’s body, my professor, my bower, my giant clam. Serene water, professor of copious clay, of spiraling finger-holes in the clay, of blue breast-milk, first pulse, all thought: there is nothing to get. You can’t eat money, dear throat, dear longing, dear belly, dear fatness, dear silky fastness: ecstatic lungs’ breath, you can’t protect yourself, there is nothing to get. Butane The huge aluminum airship is gliding over us, you and I with our children walking by Westport’s trees, seashore, gold trees, gold seashore. I say, What’s that? But no one sees it. Then the second ship crashes just behind us, spills butane lighter fluid over the field, thinly spreading, fast, out over the next field; the river at wolf 209 we don’t know, should we throw water over it or not—which will be worse for the earth (the earth itself isn’t on fire yet, only the corn in the field, and the next field). The dwarf says, Hold it! walking up between my legs into my body: I’d better see the fire skin. At My Mother’s Grave Being told, Go away. So what is left? This dark space on the road, that was a deer. So many gifts: her hazel eyes . . . What day did she go away? Walt Whitman, visitor, Emily Dickinson, canoe of light, Pablo Neruda, radio flier, fly me in. We Go Through Our Mother’s Things When we started that day to paint snow for earth 210 door in the mountain ...