Heart Swathing in Late Summer, and: Calling the Lost, and: I Shovel Into the Heart to Find Its Naked Face, and: Ear to the Night

Heart Swathing in Late Summer

In the penumbra of an oak under sculptedMoonlight, we pile the last waking hours

On our faces, breathe the wilderness of dryHeat waiting for fall ventilations. It feels

Later than it is and the air is already mouthingThe date for tomorrow. At least now, our eyes

Can fall into the craters of a waterproofReflection, and we stop for a moment to fill

Ourselves with the kind of light that can onlyBe found in the dark. What is night if not for

It being a repetition of unlit squares gluedJointly, plastered against the thought of midday.

What is not seeing but to echolocate a name.It's how I find your chin when I can't sense

The meaning of your hands. Weeks ago, it wasAstral rebounds, shiny hinges. We harvested

The fertile Perseids posed recumbentIn the back of a flatbed, tallying the mineral

Opulence reserved for those who wait. NotEver so many in return. Now this moon in its

Entirety has never looked so much likeA distant circular kite set ablaze, doused by

The kind of burning a man feels when he hearsThe humming of rain against a woman's bare neck.

Calling the Lost

Hmong people say one's spirit can run off,Go into hiding underground.

Only the physical stays behind.

To heal, a shaman checks on the spiritBy scraping the earth,Examining the dirt.

If an ant emerges,He takes it inside,

Careful not to crush the ant with his hold,Nor flutter its being into shockWith one exhale.

Sometimes we hide in ants, he says.

He will call for what leftto come back,

and for the foundto never leave.

I Shovel Into the Heart to Find Its Naked Face

      Chambers fall to splinter gravel.Leaf grows from my throat.

Walls forsake the crumpled ground            It is meant to hold up.

      There is much soA cavity will collect.

                  I ask to exit from the house:     Spirit of paper temple,                  Spirit of cooking fire,

               Sentinel at the door, what keepsWithin the loft.

This burns in heaven withRemembrance of dust:

               Spirit of kindling,Inside the gourd.

My pocket keeps the disfiguredOrange years,

                                 Used wooden                           Matches.

I pin myself to the land-living                     Slipping surely everborn.

Ear to the Night

I press my hand to your sleep.

                      Then I find your spent head under smallwhirling tresses

       having digested the clatterof car horns, children

bustling into sweet shops.

                       This might bethe gift of a street:

drumming Saturdays and a Monday palm of heart.

                   I've learned that yoursis the chorus of breathing,

a rhythm, forgiving,

that nuzzles the margin within my nature's cratered sigh.

                                 Once, I felt the feetof a canyon collapse within you.

Then I come to eyes,heavy with the tumble of night dew

                                        having collected verdigrisoff the entrance gate.

         Never mind the umbrellayou lost on the subway tracks.

The head is an iron jar filled with many swiveling hours.

                       All day, I listened,                             a city carved

from the hollows of a wire woven shell.