Six Poems

You fold this sweater the way a moth builds halls from the darkness it needs to go on living -safe inside this coffin

a family is gathering for dinner, cashmere with oil, some garlic, a little salt, lit and wings warmed by mealtime stories

about flying at night into small fires grazing on the somewhere that became the out-of-tune hum older than falling

-you lower this closet door and slowly your eyes shut -with both hands make a sign in the air as if death matters.

More bench than stone has that scent from ashes made with wood, painted green

before it should have been though the grass you stick in your shoes is new too, knows nothing

except to be closer, warmed as if it once had arms is picking up pieces

for later where it’s not so painful to sweat by dropping things in the dark and softer.

With nothing but head down you dig your way out making room arm under arm

the way your cradle was dipped first in wood then by itself lifting your hand to be counted

by twos, as yet not missing and inside a breath still dark look up to see who comes back.

Between their thirst and valleys you kneel to blanket these dead with light, air out the stove

weightless and nothing to lean on -just like that! a small mound half iron, half opens for rain

driven into the ground, stroked feeding on faces and edges though the wood slowly passing by

never stopped being a river lets you drink smoke as if once you had two hearts

still listen for an echo, corners and the emptiness that reaches inside for eyelids, sawdust and blacker.

It was a gull! broken apart and still you need your shadow spreading out as a single cry

under an immense wing though the light it gives off sticks in the ground -each feather

damp from opening, closing and opening again, lit between shoreline and hidden

-you dead know all about lying down then carried one by one in white as beautiful as overhead and a small stone.

You keep the limp, stoop the way this cane lets you pretend its wood

can heal, touches down making contact with the base though there are no planes

-what you hear is your leg dragged, starting up and still the sky weighs too much

is filled with twigs breaking off somewhere between England and the slow walk home.