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

Mother Bones

But Don says No Dickinson’s was made of iron. No said Jane Of flesh. Black Wolf Suffocated in the country a sheep in my own curtain wolf curtain! The black wolf nobody else saw I alone saw trotting down the lane past our house —Black Heart! Don’t go past our house don’t get lost just when I’ve found you just when life is not afraid any more. Of me. Just when— (I didn’t need to hate them. You can’t beat a stick. But nobody else could see what they were like. See it wasn’t all “on the green hill sheep kneel and feed”)— Mother Bones B. is dragging his mother’s bones up the stone stairs 248 door in the mountain in a bag of grass cuttings. But you can’t grow grass from cuttings. They lead me They lead me to a “lovely nurse” “in case B. needs her” she is I am sugary melt and disappear I ask for a dream about my marriage: “Ink.” Ink. Ink. Ink. My ink-stained hand his paint-smudged hand gone where nothing joins Your mouth “appeared to me” Your mouth “appeared to me” a Buddha’s mouth the size of a billboard the cradle of the real life 249 ...