First section of “The Moon Is Always Local.”
Early lyric poems.
The Dolphins
Whatever they know,
the water taught them:
Speed. Silence. How long
one breath keeps
them hurtling through
shifting currents.
Lithe, gifted,
they arch above
the horizon, defy
the stunned air, and
disappear
into the sea.
Easy in either element,
they return to water,
give themselves
back to it.
So much to learn,
and only so far
one breath will go.
Milk Ghost
I.
I can’t find a single aphis
under the Moon-catcher.
A curious flower, it blooms
wherever you wish.
A loved one’s palm
or upturned face.
Or in the ghost-bud
the child’s breath blooms
against the cold night window,
while the train’s drone
lopes across fields.
He hears it. He’s haunted.
Clarity, that crone,
will be forever at her loom,
weaving her threads into couplets.
One line, forgetting. The other,
every bit remembrance: Smoke rings
Father blew on request.
He puts his finger through
one and says,
“I’m married to a ghost.”
II.
They meet at the river, city boy
and sharecropper’s daughter.
Step carefully out into the current,
crossing barefoot on rocks.
On the other side, he takes her hand.
She says nothing, and he thinks
she’d run from his words.
The falls are loud
and draw them inside the roar.
They lie on grass made elegant
by the moon’s pale shine.
He won’t forget the shapes
his hands cup. The rhythms
of their rock and thrust. Or her scent—
like a child’s tears.
Lightning flashes a stark frieze
of their embrace.
Thunder rumbles over,
covering their shudders.
They lie still, inside the sound
of the falls. Cowled by
the star-pocked dome of its roar.
Beneath them, roots flex.
Finding the way to water.
III.
The curtain falls. A little worn.
A little frayed at the edges of the stage.
House lights brighten. The eye sharpens.
Hones in once again on Clarity
with her off-rhymes and her slanted.
Along comes night again,
doling out shadows.
Wind joins in and sings along through the
high throats of pines:
The first face of terror?
Sheer beauty…
And an old song from another time:
The moon’s thin milk clings
to leaves. To grass blades.
That Moon-catcher hums
a newer number, and hard-earned:
Any face, most loved,
can turn away from a touch.
After that, it’s all relic.
Dreams. Open mouths and smoke.
One could do worse than embrace another,
hold tight to that body.
That’s the rub of that message.
And it gets to me every time:
A kiss, a touch, even
a finger’s gentle tapping code:
remember, remember—
what we can’t put our hands on
we’d better say yes to.
Message to Father in Pork-Pie Hat, with Cocktail
Twenty dollars is a lot of money to me,
is what you told me once in
our carport about a baseball glove.
An ice cube popped in your glass.
A quinine memory: you leaning
against lattice-work. Creased chinos.
Beefeater and tonic swirling
between thumb and forefinger.
I stared at your desert boots.
The oil-stained concrete floor, and
red station wagon’s grill,
bug-encrusted.
I made do with the other. And you
barked your shin on the bleachers
when I legged out a game-winning double
that slipped past a third baseman.
I made do with the other….it comes down
to me as bites of steak you’d bring me on a fork.
I’d lie in the top bunk and chew and suck until
they were as tasteless as old gum,
the Mantovani, the Tijuana Brass.
You made do, Father. Your voice ill-suited
for tenor lead. Your courage blending
cracked notes with true ones.
Sunday morning solo in the choir loft.
Together, we made do, hymnal held
between us. Singing full-throated
the old hymn:
Come thou fount of every blessing,
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it,
and it’s veined with white, unbroken fire.
Making do, Father. Making do. Reminded now
of you like something I forgot to love.
Saint Mary’s Breath
Two nights before,
she’d gone home angry
with a bunch of blooms,
stolen flowers from
a rich man’s garden.
She tossed them on a pile
of straw. Burned
them on the clay floor.
Sudden flames quickened
Shadows. Antic dances
about the walls.
She sat through the dwindling
smolder of the ashes.
Wept all night
for bone and footfall.
Now she stands here,
of all places. Bare feet
on wet grass. The morning light
as fragile as the open
end of a promise.
What else could he ask of her?
Here, in the mist of such a blue dawn.
And what of her answer, with
early sun the color only
a lover sees?
Still as simple as a word.
As easy as her next breath.
The Moon is Always Local
She woos with names: Jessie Ann,
Amicalola. Place or person, her words
unfurl song across all distance
until I sing my way back to her music.
Faithful or not, I live my way
through towns, Sanford and Jasper.
If I count on those words, if I lean
on her singing, she changes her tune.
Whispers in another tongue
at once removed. But no more distant
than her hair, combed by long fingers of
breeze. Her cheeks flushed with
a faint blush of apples
in heavy autumn grass.
All along, whether by sight
or by sound, she stays true
to her ways.
Even now, I see
enough to keep listening.
During those pauses, dawn
and dusk, it’s her I listen for.
It’s her I hear, when
Shine! the sun calls out.
Soon, the moon murmurs.
Such ways.
Such a wooing.
II. Alembic
(1986-92)
Upon the steep floor flung from dawn to dawn,
the silken-skilled transmemberment of song.
Hart Crane–Voyages
October
Hometown Saturday night.
Gym dance for harvest moon.
Huddle in dark bleachers.
Sneak shots of bourbon.
Spot the girl called Sadie.
First slow song,
Toss off one more.
Set out, eyes down,
straw scattered
over hardwood floor.
Wanna dance? —
all I can manage.
But her wrist is sweet
and high in my hand.
Her cheek against mine:
a thawing floe.
Next morning, up early,
my jean jacket looks good on her:
The air, crisp and fast
through pick-up’s open windows.
We pass a pumpkin field,
fat with orange grinning
from thick vines and leaves.
Blonde hair tied back,
she lights a cigarette.
Rubs her hand on my thigh
And laughs:
We’ve got all day.
Ruby
How the fountain sparkles
under town square streetlights.
Come closer.
Sing me those heart-felt
Wrong notes.
Then pull my head
To your breast.
The waterfall
Stalls
above our bed.
And in my ear,
I swear, with water
As my witness,
your heart
is a hot coal,
burning
close enough
to hear.
Bullrushes
She said she was haunted by her
childhood fantasy of marriage: Playing
long after dark. Running barefoot
on pavement and wet grass. Sleeping late,
after finding the way home, still she dreams:
Tall reeds click overhead against a high sky.
The basket drifts as if guided.
She peeks over the side. Up ahead, in a cove,
young women laugh and bathe
in the river shallows. She moves closer,
anticipating surprise and delight.
And then she remembers how she got away.
That boy who pushed her off—-she tricked
him. Left him behind. Even now,
she sees him. How he watched as she floated
away. How, standing on the bank, facing
the sun of that morning, he lifted one hand
in a brave, faint wave. While the other
trembled against his brow. Shade for
his dark eyes. Those windows into sadness.
Blue
I call you friend, Blue,
and you turn to go.
I know. Lake always
holds you close.
And Sky might take you far away,
but then Blue, you’re back in
her eyes, seeing through me.
Some colors change. Trade
one hue for another.
For them, that’s
a true way. As for you,
I say: Stay Blue and
keep me as close in
her eyes as she keeps you.
O Blue: At home high
in the sky.
Deep in the lake.
And in her eyes.
I like that about
you, Blue, the feel
you have for what’s inside.
Dobro
A match flares at bedside.
Her small shoes, left behind,
remind me all of this world
mirrors that one: two nudes
fire arrows at the midnight sun.
Her profile nods in the eye’s
hearth: midnight, cornflower.
A match flares. Her shirt is
her scent, her scent reminds me
we were here, once. Again her eyes
spark. Again fingers curve
to faces. She and I touching
solid, tangible things.
Cheek. Lips. Purple flower.
Rose of Sharon
Whenever she appears,
she charges this valley
with a lover’s peril.
Flushed by mid-day
thunder, all wings hover
above her petals.
When she lifts her veil,
even desolation
flowers, harsh and stark
with clarifying light.
I wish shade for her.
That hill’s shadow
a ship’s sail billowed
by the same wind
that cools her.
New bloom. Old meadow.
Valley now colored
by her love. Her color.
Watch her, how
she bristles thorns. Until
those other flowers
just want back under.
That teaches.
That shows danger.
Wild-eyed wonder,
when you bloom out of the dust,
my every lie you set on fire.
Charisma
She steps from the shell.
The wave pulls back. Returns
to undertow. Leaving pearls
of foam ringing her ankles.
Whitecaps trouble the big sea.
Beyond them, the horizon
gazes, steadfast. Salt crystals
her lashes. Her breasts dried
by breeze. Fine hairs glisten
on her belly and thighs.
How content she seems, touched
by such a glow as the sun
smiles at the bright news that
its rays have just kissed gold.
She gazes inland, her back
to that vanishing point. That horizon.
As if she doesn’t care
how long she stays. Or
how far she had to
travel across the miles, out of the
absolute fathoms.
Thumping the Melon
The meat of the matter:
Heavy weight on the mother plant.
To bust it open spills out
all the fruit-stuff soil, seed,
root, vine and stalk call up
from underfoot. Its nascent taste is
an echo inside a globe you spin
and put your finger on, looking
for a new place to live. Inside
the thick skin, the rind relaxes
its grip. The pulp sweetens
from the inside out. Until
taste sends strange, wet whispers
to my tongue. I cock my middle
finger behind my thumb. Flick it
nail first. Strike the globe.
The dome that mimes a planet.
And give a listen.
Skin.
Rind.
Pulp.
All answer back:
Not ripe.
Not yet.