Deer Fence, and: March Snow, and: I Married You, and: To Speak in Tongues

Deer Fence

Inside the new deer fence
wildflowers, absent for years,
cover our hill again with half forgotten
flecks of white, like so many
ghosts of themselves
on the dark floor of the forest.
I pick a bunch: tooth wort,
and dutchman's breeches,
so luminous with mystery
we must tame them with the names
of household things.
But where are the deer now?
What other woman's flowers
fill their mouths with
the soft colors of spring?

March Snow

There is something hopeful about March,
something benevolent about the light,

and yet wherever I look snow
has fallen or is about to fall, and the cold

is so unexpected, so harsh,
that even the spider lily blooming

on the windowsill seems no more
than another promise, soon to be broken.

It is like a lover who speaks
the passionate language of fidelity, but

when you look for him, there he is
in the arms of winter.

I Married You

I married you
for all the wrong reasons,
charmed by your
dangerous family history,
by the innocent muscles, bulging
like hidden weapons
under your shirt,
by your naive ties, the colors
of painted scraps of sunset.

I was charmed too
by your assumptions
about me: my serenity –
that mirror waiting to be cracked,
my flashy acrobatics with knives
in the kitchen.
How wrong we both were
about each other,
and how happy we have been.

To Speak in Tongues

To speak in tongues
is simply to follow desire
out of the door of the mouth
and into the open air – that place
where language is seldom
understood. They will bring
doctors and interpreters
who will shake their heads
before they move on.
Soon even words will fade,
as stars must do at noon.
There are no choices here.