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)