South Haven, and: Mackinac Island

South Haven

Remember how the Pleiades hung stunned over the culvert, their breastsswaying over Orion's open maw, his hands raw? I didn't blink. Lake Michigan

gnawed the shore: granite, plinth, all that was left of it—the old life.Memory, that mouth full of ash, highway that only runs south

where the power plant pumps into the sluice. Fish swim backward,the land tilts, headland, snowbank, bluff. The pier draped in silver cloths

all night, lighthouse erect and comely as a lover, that redknife; ten years a housewife and mute. Struck numb since

I stripped down: wool sweater, lace, wire. Grace. Yes, thisold thing again—unpeel the nametag, that name is lost

tossed in the ravine where narcissus grows out of season,girls kiss each other between the knees. Hello my name is

fades to Hell is. This place: headland, pier, glacial drift. Beercans glint like satellites and Hades clomps around the basement

like an oaf. Home where beach scours the sky, the milk sours,hope ruffles its feathers. Oh, who unseals the sky's blue dome? Who

calls this blear world home but the rest of us? The rest. Sara: the Pleiadespour down their terrible fire: all winter, the flowers bloomed.

Mackinac Island

Penelope, Undone

Undo the cotton shift, those sprigs of wild horse-mint, those buttons of ripe butter! Beauty,you're weeping. Then the girlskin unhinged, fur

and skin, all silver scar and painted lip, pointed nail enameledas: undo the sky, lion-heart. Untell each lie, untie the mooringsand sail beyond the still harbor. Oh, best beast: unsheath those bleached

teeths. The bloodied lip bleats best, and so the wholebloody heap is in a pile in the sand: all that hide, all thatfancy. And the jays are on it and the crows

pick apart even the bones. Even the lacework of veinsand the meaty heart. To walk away (headland, long grass, clearwater) is another thing completely. To not look back on the old

life is salt, lozenge. All carved off ears, while up herethe air clears out that thought alley. Who told these suitorsto make a line at the gate? To bring bread and honey, milk-

weed nosegays and their hard meat? The verdant fleshis failing. This, thigh. This sow's ear, this lemonrind. Thislimestone cliff, this turtled island? All mine, all mine.