The Book in Which I Found You

You wrote "my souls,
three of them
have not spoken
in years."

Secretly,
they've learned
to live on wine
and beer

and a few
well-memorized
excuses.

I read
your book
about forgetting,
splitting, that life

is burning
inside a space
no bigger than
your skull.

You said,
"a guest in a room,
a fatherless boy,
the wounded luxury

of a corpse
are masterpieces."
Your third voice,
the one that wrote:

"my souls
are yours"
told me where
to find you.

Greensleeves

From a desire to melt,
she thrust her hands
into fire. Do you admire

the reckless? The damned,
who damn themselves?

Would you hide
a self-inflicted wound
though it defined you?

If my bed was an ocean
of blood, would you
swim in it?

What coat of white
shines colder than light,
whose bones chew through

delight like pain?

Who, but my lady
Greensleeves.

Pagan Season

We all go down, like a ritual
of the woods, down from the hills

in blue overalls, hunting jackets,
oiled gloves to harvest the syrup;

we surprise a wild fox
licking the hard-candied veins,

scraping its teeth against
purple-bruised bark, stopped

by the startle of birds
from the overhead brush-

he learns of encroachment.

The sun's red spear catches
his fur like fiery rust, each

strand bristling flame, his eyes
a stranger to light, large,

disproportionate- a pagan
whose senses deceive him.

Many harvests, cold mornings
pulling tins from the trees,

brown sweet-smell of maple,
thick smeared tar on our skins,

we would always remember
that remarkable season.

Grass and LIons

I shrink from ushers,
straw baskets on a pole
moving down the worship line;

a five dollar bill will not
absolve my sins;
my throbbing knees

can barely hold
me humble.

I'm not as sad
as you because
my heart is a hole

filled with grass
and trees and lions-

the things God
made guiltless.