on the revolutions of the celestial spheres

I.

i remember the year you stopped painting
stifled it like a brush fire that grew insolent
and unwieldy in the backyard

you forced your hands to be still
pushed them straight down from your arms
and heavy with life and buzzing numb
they swung, vast anchors
searching for sea's bottom

you kept your eyes shut and quiet
to avoid seeing your next painting manifest
jump before you like a pen-pal you grew up writing to
but had not yet met

and when you spoke
your voice lay wrapped and mummified
for fear of giving too much away
about how much you missed it

before copernicus shook the galaxy
and scattered planets, left them strewn haphazardly, ellipses
there was a belief that light came from the eyes
and wherever you looked light was shed
in the shapes of cones, perfect headlights into your lover's face

and you had learned to keep your eyes closed


II.

when i lived in a time zone
that made our voices echo on the phone
i starved for you
i began writing like each breath pushed through pen
was a loaf of bread
i was dry boned with hunger
suddenly deaf-mute
reserving my energies for that most necessary
reduction to the tiny canvas of a brown notebook and black pen
moving at a speed that left letters half-curled after being left in the rain
and expelling words bulimically, as though ridding myself sated me

while you stayed comatose
i seized like an epileptic
skittish, heart a beating bumblebee


III.

you began painting again to slow my pulse
because unlike copernicus
i had swallowed the responsibility of the universe
rather than scattering it to space

your hands began clasping palette knives arthritically
creaking, wooden and unused
but remarkably responsive
titanium, umber, vandyke brown oiled your joints

you stretched your neck, shook the dust off
and bones popping with potential energy
you broke canvas like a stubborn horse
swathed it in primer
and moved your body like a swimmer

i let myself keep my eyes closed
and inhaled to taste the fumes of starting over
i used your strokes as my metronome, my compass
insides finally aligned

my muscles released with my breath
my body, limp
and although i did not stir

i felt us moving forward

the flight or the seed

my great grandmother fled through russia following the lines she kept
on a map she drew in her palm
and when sweat and salt and heavy things
washed them away
she followed the lifeline that stretched
from the base of her wrist
to between the high peaks of her index finger and thumb
she showed her brother, my great uncle mendel
pointing to her palm
here's the river she said that means we're getting closer
and he said but see how long our journey is?

she brought three things
the first was mendel
who i imagine like the byzantine christ child
ancient face, baby's body
the second was the samovar
that my mother fought and clawed for when we divided up the will
and the third was a child inside her
who would grow to be my grandfather

through the walls of his womb, my grandfather heard the musical drawlings of a southern russian
iosif dzhugashvili, who had changed his name to stalin
because he hated his accent
and wanted it to sound like steel breaking bodies
in iron fists

how could i stay here she asked herself
aware of her organic insides, her fleshy body that she loved so much
she could not stay for a man of metal and promises
and whispering the tefilat haderech, the traveler's prayer
she and mendel flew with bodies that grew wings

when she came to brooklyn, they called her goldie
and she gave birth to a son who had a son who had a son
as though they'd always existed inside each other
like a russian doll
and had traveled all that way just for the joy of existing


a few years after she had forgotten how to speak
and a few days before i was born
she held her lined hand
to my mothers belly
to show me the way out

walden

when i started to forget, you showed me
pushed my hands into the sand and
buried me
feel that you said this is the end of summer
and you were right
because the sand was cold and sharp
and stung pleasingly, like rain
the kind that comes to wash leaves down into the gutters
of houses and wipe the streets clear of summer sands
and hopscotched chalkly afternoons
that children brought home from the beach and left
on the pavement

the wind picked up in white gusts and set the gray water whistling
made the willows bend back in surprise
at how quickly cold had come

but you stood to face it
you shrugged off your cloths and i watched
you run into the water

catching nighttime

very young
i'd brought a jar to meet up with eight pm
just minutes before bedtime
minutes before a story and tucked in and washed hands for small prayers
there had been a nighttime tale of fireflies
animals that flew through dark like trucks
sure of themselves and their hazard lights
and from tall things
i'd found each speck and each little life
standing sure and true
i held my jar to them

come to me come to me
sleep in my bed and let me wake to you

i dropped honey in each jar to act as bait
let the light catch and fall
illuminate
this would be home
this would be a beautiful home for you to stay with me

i climbed to the top of the maple out front
branches tapping the roof like fingers
held my jar up up up

the limbs shook and i swayed
and when my father came out he said
what are you doing being so dangerous?
and i told him i was catching stars

i held my jar above my head
be mine
be mine be mine be mine

ha! a sonnet!

and oh how slowly new mexico grows
let a breeze take me there, let me be blown
i'm lost in tennessee and my mother knows
that coming back to tennessee is coming back alone

oh okay oklahoma, i'm yours now
give me cold dark wines and some peach bruised sin
find me in andarko, in jay, in bristow
and come find me oklahoma, again

all to go home to you, montana
i'll lay my bed in big horn's heart, breathe deep
montana, montana, montana
and i'll pray that it's me whose soul i keep

if i'm gone before you wake, leave it be
there's just still so much left i've got to see

city/circus

when you left
there had been a circus in town
and though it stumbled bankrupt
moth-eaten, rotten as last summer's porch
it had enticed you
lifting women's skirts and playing instruments
made to fit in your pocket
the jew harp, the harmonica,
you would have made a career as the best looking
and found tightropes to swing from
and a trapeze to sit on
mother said you'd left for a girl, or for a fortune
and i knew she didn't understand the wormy seduction of the carnival
that it served as only a preview of
the blazing lights
the blistering business
of the city


when i was fourteen
you wore your hair in a pomp
and had six hats with different brims
you taped your heels when you got new shoes
and i'd hear you up the stairs at night
announcing i've arrived i've arrived i won't stay long
and down again in the morning
i'm going going already gone

we sat on the roof of our house one night
you chewed some candy cigarettes and a toothpick
while i sat stiff with cold and the fear of skipping down the roof like rain
you hear that song? you asked
and i listened to melody of twigs bristling
and the small noises of creatures burrowed
water curling down the drainpipes
the bright lights and twirlings of stars
the clamor of night in the woods
i'll leave this all some day you said
i'm gonna find the city
that there's my city song
and you threw the toothpick into the night
but of course we never heard it land

throwing away what’s lost

owning a skiff
means washing the hull
with long scrapes that only a
sea soaked body could take
and when she's shining
i paint her against and across and against the grain

(stand there, stranger, let me stretch out of that empty tub
let me feel the air beneath me)

i let her dry
and watch her beneath my feet
i've climbed on board and she stands taller
raised two feet from the ground
the deck is ten above the dirt
and she begs me down

(you'll break my back but i won't be the first to die
you watch the horizon, i'll look by the sea)

i run my fingernail down her brass
that got dirty from the mackerel nets
i swung once, twice this morning
round over there
where you can't see from here
where the land is so far
i feel live we've been lost

(carve that chest down to the quick and you'll see
true revelers call god with feet on firm ground)

sometimes i say i left my wife for this boat
sometimes i can only catch enough to feed me
and never enough to bring ashore and sell
but today i bought some avocados and some salt
and when i eat them with snapper
i save the salt for dessert
leaves my mouth bitter and dry

(throw it overboard, throw it port side for good luck
to forget the days you've lost)

why we must leave each other / a girl in three parts

before:

meeting under low roofed smoke
departure quick and in my memory
trapped like flowers in cut glass
these are my palms you said
they're made for capture
and caught close between you
and the beams that held upright
awnings of the house you used to live in
i found my breath
broken and discarded in my throat


during:

sit still there, sit still
i've got to remember the face you made as a child
because i'm certain it's the one you wear now
make the oh oh oh with your mouth
because i like to see you form your words
and suckle like a babe
or like the young animals
that you surely adopted when you were four, five, six
did you use to breathe so hard as a child?
let me imagine
you as a young runner on new legs
you were just seven and so spry
i'm sure your heart beat the same in your breast
so to make your skin shake and swell and glisten
and now it breaks the beams of your ribs to get out
lay still
lay still and breathe and i'll hear your heart surface and grow full
each beat sounding like a heavy swallow of fresh milk
and dripping and sweating from the glass
i will drink the rest


after:

i woke this morning knowing you had left
in the middle of the night
skipping the steps gingerly
drunk on the thick syrup of night
that leaked through the cracks in the door
you had dressed in the dark
knowing street lamps were enough
and excusing them for waking you
before the sun could rouse us both

you had to run because the night was cool enough for it
air wet and fresh and tasting of overripe plums
the porch to your house seizing and slack-jawed
you ran past the playground
stopping to watch the midnight children
and there you thought of me waking
thought of me running to the window to try to find remnants of you leaving
thought of the hours i'd sleep not knowing you'd gone
and you saw them arch back and forward and off and away
swinging low and long diving into nothing

and thought of me landing, hard

a lesson in bringing people home

she gave the invitation with the inflection of a school girl
come? to my parent's house? they won't be home?
and plucked like fruit from a basket his eyes
lit up and nodded yes yes yes yes, panting

and the drive out of the city was long
but only because the buildings spread farther and farther apart
making the stretch longer, wider
between here and there

she pointed to the streets and found the landmarks
that was the road my best friend lived on
that was the place we found that cat
here is where i grew up

and they entered the house like strangers
she, as though sharing great realms
sprung in her parent's space
flinging lights on with such abandon he winced

and he, he felt the presence of many many
although she had said her family would not be home
and wandering among bills addressed to them
food left by them

he wondered if they would ever be alone

in the bathroom there were towels that her parents left
and he tried not to notice their looming
while she twirled haphazardly in the small shower
rubbing other people's shampoo through her hair

he avoided the places in the floor most run down by traffic
as though the occupants still stood there
and neglected all the food in the fridge
the saved channels on the remote

the photo albums, the tired blankets
the pile of shoes, the stack of marked books
the can of used pens, the half empty bottles of soda
the lists of chores neglected and others crossed away

do you see this place? he asked her
everything here is touched by your family
don't you feel them?
there is too much of them here

this is all me
this is all me here she said

la paz.

we sail boats with spanish names
we do not wring the sea from our hair
we stand arm's length from the main
let the wind rust our locks to salt

young things

i'd be borne from that tree there, see?
that oak built big like lungs
take those leaves there, see?
make them into teacups

i found a chick behind the barn
i brought it to my bedroom and i had kept her with me
on the windowsill during the day
and let her run around

okay now inhale and push out your belly
i'm going to braid your hair down your back
if you show me how to ride your horse
and how to make my body long and lean

well she was so small, she slept by my bed at night
and was so downy soft
it was almost too much to touch
and in the morning i'd wake worried she'd be gone

here when you pluck these from the branches
you can pull back the outer skin
and inside is the fluff of the tree
feel it

do you want to come with me?
i'm going to bring her home
i'm going to let her go

to the barn
and let her back
i can show you the new piglets
and the rooster
but first lay here with me
feel the grass behind our knees

winter animals

let's go for a run he said
and the dark would have been impenetrable
if not for the snow that peacefully
plainly broke the insistence of nighttime

let's run til we can't feel our breath and our legs he said
and we heard our breath like beats
and on the third we broke like birds
and flew fast and against the snow

and the dogs were out ahead
haha they said how can you be so slow when there are so many dangers in the world?
and we felt the knees and the shins and the things that kept us aloft
swinging grand arms heavy feet that grew lighter thinner with each part that grew more numb

i'll want to describe this later
i'll want to remember the change in the movement of the earth when five of us and five dogs ran hard
i'll want to say the exact sensation of sting and sweat
and the smell the snow makes when sped through

but i will not remember these things
for these are the things understood in the moment and shared only with the moment
and they cannot be taken with you when you leave
the only part i will remember will be when my eyes pricked with tears swollen and threatening to skip down my face
and reveal too much

i would blame it on the cold
would tilt my head back and smile
would feel the strain in my neck and the weight of my own head
(it it is marvelous to feel the real mass of your body, the effort you put on the earth)

but at that moment i just let them come and streak back from my eyes to show my speed
swallowed air like a hungry beast
dodged drifts that would disappear in spring
ran beside a dog that became more nature that i've ever known


i will remember that this is how i feel when i'm with the hounds
and i ran and ran and felt the winter animals in my breath

la chute

getting on with your life
means watching from the side
of the road
while the bus
i meant to catch
makes sheets of wind
slap my skin
and before it hits the stop light
i can decide to run
run run run

(on clear days like this
i have an easier time
remembering the
way we once were
flying kites from the rooftop
shoelaces tied to the grate
an anchor to prevent a run too far and
too fast
whistling quickly above
the kites darted and begged
and pulled us
please follow us
please follow us
just one step more
and oh ho no
we'd cry
not straight from the roof
and we'd spit watermelon seeds
down to the street
wondered if they cracked in impact)

and the bus drew away
farther farther
and pulled recklessly
into traffic my body alight
strung and silent
taut and potent
watching your life pull away
with diesel speed
wondering how much i'd risk
to fall
to follow

noose

my feet are so cold here
cold floors that stay chilled long into summer
into winter
back to summer again
she raised the blinds and leaned back with all her weight
the cord noosed around her index finger
growing purple and swelling
would a neck do that? i thought
would a neck swell and shade like that
and she let the blinds fall fast and solid
let them hit the sill and dive to the floor
stopping, fated, collected, an inch above the floor

imagine if it had just gone straight through
she said
and i thought she was talking about the blinds
imagined them going to the apartment below and sinking
unsuspecting into the rest of the neighbor's head

but she wasn't talking about the blinds
but about the neighbor
and how he hung himself with fishing line
and jumped from a great height
and sawed off his neck to the spine

she rubbed her hands together and then on her pants
gripped her shoulders and arms and shook
like she knew him
i raised the blinds back up and we stared
out into the busy street

the flight and the train and the fall

I have it built big in my head
Standing outside the train station counting
Each lumbering lift of the rails
Each time I catch my breath in expectation
Finding the grooves in the cement that may have been yours
From long ago
When you took this train to Bed-Stuy every weekend just for fun

I had been younger then
And from the window of our apartment I saw a brick wall
That I romanticized to the familiarity of lovers
And we'd make eye contact, break, make
Staring, impassioned, embittered, a body slid
Down as though carried on rails
Constant and steaming it seemed
I described it like that to the wall
And the wall had no answer for me
I looked to find the body when it cracked like a pistol
It landed like it was still in flight
Arched and crumpled, neck broken and back

I'll wait by the station and talk to the agent to pass the time
I'll wait for the trains to part and open you up
Find you there in a puffy snow jacket and sweatpants
All lavender except your hat, red
And written on your ticket was where'd you go next
Your body still moving and still alive, flight fresh in your cheeks
Your hands and arms warm and holding blood in tight
And maybe you'll stay still awhile
Make up for the years since you've been gone

barren tracks

there are train tracks there behind the house do you want to see them?
and i follow her; she is three and i am thirty but i follow
and there at the bend in the street there are rails
with ancient knuckle pins and draft keys scattered wide
there she pet the rail

hunched over in her corduroy and a sage turtleneck
bent over small legs and cartilaginous knees
i could hear her parents party and thought to get back
but she sighed and stroked it and said
sometimes it's dangerous to be here because trains take people

i looked over the rails, felt the weight of my purse with its grown up parts
my shoes heavy and a mature choice
vines had overcome the iron and steel
encircled the tracks for their own use
moss grew lush on the wood and she placed pudgy fingers inside it

i forced myself to bend to her, to crack my posture
i felt too thin, i felt unwomanly and sterile, hair too thin, bones too thin
and she broke with chubby creases of youth
raised her face to mine and asked
would you hold me if a train came

i let my bag slide from my shoulder, its heavy weight and faux leather resting on the ground
and i pulled her to me and said i think i hear one coming
she buried her face in my chest and beneath my open overcoat clutched my blouse
and i pulled her to me and smelled the scent of children
i whistled woooooosh in her ear and i was the train

i held her to me like i was her only protection in the world
let my back be vulnerable to the barren tracks and ghost train
i held her to me and thought of her lungs and bones
i held her to me and thought of her infinitesimal beginnings
i held her

The Dead Husband, Robert.

Maria's husband died.
She had been away at the time, and bore the news with dignity
She took his old clothes and stacked them on her bed
So pulled together, so sure
But found herself toppled over like a broken chimney
Weary, heavy, sobbing into folded shirts and pleated pants

But Maria, having felt abandoned by her husband long before he died,
Had already taken a lover
And swept with tears and solemn promises, he absorbed her grief
With paper towels and bathroom tissues
And waited patiently for them to return to their trysts
Debating, quietly and in a small, hidden part of his head
Whether their love would still be so vibrant and bruising
Now that Maria was no longer married.
He decided he would wait and see.

And one day, while falling to pieces over a trinket
Her husband came home.
He entered the door he had left
(She did not notice at first)
And asked her about her day, complained about the July heat
She dropped everything- trinket, jaw, body
And fainted to the floor

He was still there when she came to.
After much deliberation and discussion,
They determined he was real, he was staying, and he was wondering why
his clothes were piled in the corner on the ottoman
(She had moved them there; one can sleep in their bed with a memorial of
clothing for only so long)
They also determined that he found it impossible to leave their house
Having forgotten what the outside world was like.

So Maria and Robert (that was his name)
Built a little system together in their home, a system where Maria was
the center of the universe and Robert revolved around her
She often called him "zombie husband" when they grew comfortable
enough to joke about it
And she stopped calling her lover
Who found the story of a dead Robert living with her a challenge and
an opportunity
And sat patiently outside her apartment with flowers (roses, because
although lillies were her favorite, he did not care to remind her of
her dead husband who was probably, he reckoned, inside and mocking
him)

Maria and Robert grew closer still and her lover met a nice girl
(Her name was Cindy, and she walked her dog at 6:30 every night and
one evening, the roses were for her)
And more and more, Maria stayed in
Choosing to leave her home infrequently
Because why go out to dinner and a movie when they could always watch a movie on tv or make a nice meal together
She was his world, and she was giddy with importance and necessity
Found herself guilty of quietly needing him just as much
And more and more, Maria found herself falling in love for the first time
Falling in love with need, falling in love with loneliness,
Falling in love with the dead husband in her apartment

A Driving Night, 1988

a driving night, 1988

We spent the night driving
Teaching me Henry Miller
Swore ourselves to Anais
Felt June inside calm calamities of January
And on a hill above the highway we parked
Car running, hazard lights beating against our legs
You lit a cigarette, ages older than me
Those years I grew up
Outside a slum
And everyone smoked there
I saw yellow windows from the street
Aged teeth and bones
Nicotine soaked egos
But now you inhaled and all I saw was purest marrow
And the blinding milk of the street lights
You saluted and said you can see everything
And I took it as a compliment
You pointed to the road
Ribbons of traffic lights
There's our milky way
You said and laughed
And smoke left your lungs like a jogger exhaling spring
You cocked your neck to the sky
City lights break the stars somehow
You were so delicate that night so careful with words
City lights beat them back you said
And the headlights twinkled
Our breath crystallized inside that month
And I wrapped my scarf tighter, felt each hole of cold
And yearned to get back in the car
Go back home to Mom
But this was so much of you at once
All I'm saying is
You said
All I'm saying is that there's our future
And you pointed your cigarette tipped rosy
Up the highway
And it seemed to stretch forever

Labor Pains, Growing Pains

Labor Pains, Growing Pains

He had asked his mother when he would grow great with baby
Like his enormous, jolly aunt had said about his cousin
Said it with a knish plopped into his plate
"She'll grow great with baby, she will"
And he stared
Awe struck and intensified
At the promise of life giver life grower life knower

His mother had laughed and said
"About the same time you get your beard"
And he would lay on the livingroom sofa, lay across the Cadillac seats, lay across his bed at night
And practice his breathing

"This is how I'll breathe when baby comes"
And he puffed his stomach and made a steeple
Closed the doors
Found all the people

Occasionally, his hands would drift to his face to feel for the beard
But they always returned to his belly
Which he imagined to lay crouched, prepared to bloom like a watermelon
From red blossoms and broke the neck of the flower with each birth

And he imagined the intensity of the life inside him
The feeling of his body turning inside out with life
Being inundated with the buzzing, trembling sense of purpose
And for but a moment he felt labor pains
But they came from longing, and they came from the heart

deep sea divers of 1916

deep sea divers of 1916

this was a time of deep sea diving
he was trained and fluent in sea speech
took the plunge
this sea floor is like a valley he thought
expansive, soft
dark and honest

and he in clanking armor
of 1916
felt like a submarine soldier
hung with shells of iron
driftless yet, but for a rubber pipe
no bigger than his wrist
and he could shut if off like a garden hose if he wanted
plugged in his steely fist like the bent stalk of a geranium
letting the air stop letting it go nowhere
letting go

letting go deeper and deeper
our deep sea diver stared up through the water
my reflection's just there under the skin of the sea
looks like a lost pilot

and when he kicked out his legs he could drift in his armory
it's hard to hold on
it's hard to hold on when nothing stays
he clutched his lifeline and felt his feet lift

truly everything i loved

tap tap telegraph
the girl wrote wire lines
straightened them with needled nosed pliers
wrote phrases round and useful like paperclips
sometimes curled and twisted like an electric tumbleweed
filled up hope and heart
tap tap telegraph
her anthems made in morse time
through the tremors wires shivered

and leaving like cold chills
the girl would find wire scars tapped tapped
into flesh words put into flesh
i've got to make this feeling down pin it down she said

(and above somewhere
there is a satellite that is buzzing
for feelings of electrons like bumblebees
and smiling smiling in sound waves
the satellite spins to direct its attention
and astronomers wonder what's caused
this sudden interest
what could have caused
this attraction)

there's a nest of syllables like magnets
wire framed and sharp
emphatic and unnerving
and sorted through, they make new elements
this is a love song she thought
and felt the electrodes glow and blush
i'm writing to you via telegraph
the wires sang
their melody was pure but faded, weary
with exhaustion
from the long, tired haul across
what seems like centuries

(the satellite winks in recognition)

who will find me and my hammered teeth
chewing out each word to the quick
like they were steel fingernails
she thought it and she thought it and she pushed her face against the window
where are my electrons going?
and she could see fireflies spark as though shot

tap tap telegraph
it spoke to her
it spoke back to her

(the satellite sighed for sight of a love story)

and she laid down on the floor near her speaking machine
felt the words come out in bursts, hesitate, burst again
there is kinship here
these words and i have a lot in common

and she swam in someone's brittle enumerations
and felt she knew exactly what they meant
without understanding a sound

Adonai

the woman paused and pressed the pots to the stove
lifted each
ahavah, unetaneh tokef kedushat hayom
simmered their copper bottoms red she said
that's what gives copper it's color
the boy had each hand curled around the edge of the table
pulled up little chin to ledge and when he was being especially good she winked like they had a secret
and she kneeled down
do you want to know the secret of it all?
dropped and ready under tables crawled small arms and legs
given clothespins rubber bands red pens to play with

ahavat haemet
do you know what that means?
it means a love of truth

i've got older bones now
the boy visited and prayed and she touched his head
they were never in the kitchen now
i need to stay in bed
you need to stay in bed
they spent mornings making talk
and she had large eyes lifting and swaying with his stories
am kadshecha she held his hand baruch habah b'shem adonai
he could feel her bones and joints
he tried to memorize the room
yellow curtains, old sighs, pictures of me
chayei olam he fell asleep beside the quilts

when she fell, he heard the floorboards whisper
so slight they sighed so slight
u'teshuvah, u'tefillah, u'tzedakah ma'avirin et ro'a ha-gezeirah
she moaned and murmured like a kettle
she clutched her knees like stopping a swollen hose
he began to cry

b'rosh hashanah yikateivun, u'v'yom zom kippur yechatemun
they thought it together but they will never know that only you and I will know

do you want to know the secret of it all?

and he lifted her and put her on the bed and felt for breaks asked her still frame what happened how did it happen can you hear me
how can her bones be so small
and he ran to the freezer to get a bag of peas


once he had been under that table and saw the strength in her steps
that now sagged slowly like rotted wood
she dropped dinner I remember and she dropped it and we played in it before she threw it away

he elevated her legs and said
you'll be alright you'll be alright
he straightened her nightgown and realized he was sweating and crying
and hoped she hadn't seen his fear yet

do you want to know the secret of it all?

he was so fast he was so fast he was so fast and strong
she let her body settle and feel the movement of the room
the boy looked on
because she stayed so still


ani veatah neshane et haolam
you and I will change the world

the saint

the saint

i had me some limber limber legs that felt a whole lot of nothin
not even the thumping pumping of the church legs stamping all around them church psalms
it was Saturday night and they belted hallelujah hallelujah they shouted and rose like big old claps of thunder
and up to their feet all of em alight with the glow of god
brilliant they were brilliant and beckoning but i stayed lame and still
steady but for the big beats of my heart
rising and falling like them, like them cheers
the room rocked with sweat and celebration
yellow lamps were just swinging from electric wires
filling each soul with neon light and the lord

(and their praise rose higher and higher to rhyme and match the glory of the martyr)

she had been oh my so tired sunk to a chair palms low
skin shining and rippling with each sin she drank up from us
and she swallowed and made em her own
took for the keeping for her assumption
took em from us, us sinners
I couldn't stop starin at those faces our hallelujah faces
the open mouths the bowed lips the eyes like open windows
hallelujah hallelujah they sang
and she cured another
and the man who once was blind now could see

(sometimes she would collapse from swallowing too many
sometimes she would puke from being too full of us)

lifted lifted my frame found the shape of two shoulders
and oh my I was lifted and brought to the martyr I was
ready to take it right outta me my birthed sin and my useless legs
the voices raised and rocked breathed and moved like a flock of birds
and yes yes yes they made spaces in the church in oh sounds
bliss moved face to heart to hands to eyes

all but hers oh yes all but hers no bliss there
her shape was that of a question bent and stooped
rising at the end
her breath did not come out glory glory it came out hard brittle
and the sins in her eyes
the diseases she'd up and taken from us
oh lord the way she aged

and before she could heal me I bit the man who was carrying me
and I bit him hard, I did
and when he looked at me all surprised I go
man I gotta go pee
and he took me away from the woman
cause I couldn't bear to see her face
once she felt my sins

after the rain of many years

I.
it was a few years ago
he had spent the summer on the roof
growing tomato plants, juniper, sage
the vines from the ivy crushed the black tarmac roof
brought closer the four short walls

he hid a small rhododendron and at night would stare heavenwards
from the pillow of his bed
and recount the exact shape and dimensions of the pot
and if he were to raise up
body pressed to ceiling
he would be plaster bits away from his tree

above the kitchen grew some decorative chili plants
and he thought of them when he made a sandwich
(i could be frying up little chilis right now)
his eyes would flash at the ceiling intermittently
and remember what grew above his head
that which he would escape to hours later to water
and check the succulence of his vegetables

II.
last year, yes. i remember
they tore down the fire escape and the ladder to the roof
because a student fell off
while playing football
on the roof across the street
i remember someone asked did they catch it?
when told they had jumped off in a long pass

we could no longer go upstairs
and it was so sudden
i think i had left my towel and
little boombox that played with just one speaker
we were lucky we weren't up there when they did it
i told him
but he stayed quiet
and hesitated when i asked him about his plants
i knew that he could see them withered, dessicated like rodents caught in a trap
he threw away his watering can
i know because i bought him some plants for inside our apartment
and he used a water glass to feed them at night

i knew when he forgot he would let his eyes flash up
and still woke in the night feeling his body pressed against the ceiling
the rhododendron heavy with death
and sometimes i think it hurt him to feel them so close
and be so powerless to keep them alive

III.
yesterday, it was a miracle
i asked him if he noticed the leak in the ceiling
and he said he hadn't seen it, he hadn't noticed
and i took him near the coffee table and pointed and look! look at that!
there was a crack in our ceiling and it sagged like a ripped bag of wet laundry
leaking and dripping on the floor
it was the color of earth and seemed to breathe with life

so they came to inspect and saw the fresh mud and dirt
they had nothing long enough so the firetrucks came
to stretch their wispy ladders to the roof
tallest building they said tallest building on this street
i watched from my bedroom window
and he watched from underneath the slit in our ceiling and let the water hit his face

from my room i heard the sound of an avalanche
and underneath it he stood
covered in mud and moss and leaves
they kept falling, kept coming as though the whole roof was pulled like dough
remnants of soiled roots and overripe fruits and rich vegetables sank in a pile around his feet
becoming sweet, soiled syrup
lush and strong, his tree had fallen to the corner, taking bits of plaster with it
and nearby, a planter that had just missed his head
and a pot that had hit his shoulder when it fell
i asked him later why he didn't duck
and he said he had been staring at the sky