A Response

When the window opens (this window is open)

When each bridge whispers, then rips

When I slip through the filter

Then,

our sin

is swallowing

our lowest hopes

The result is the sound smack

of pleurons, lateral plates

of body segments, landing

in the pattern of a scrapbook.

Numbness.  Feeling the company

of feeling.  Feeling the company

of others’ thumbs, the complexity

that falling leaves.  A dove (however symbolic)

A dove on a tightrope.

____________________

The earth is a handful

of fingerpaint waiting

for the next glacier.

This world is a handful.  But,

late night, no one arrives.          

We are water people

(though no one told me).

We are water people,

but waves can’t erase

the pulse of what’s under

our table.

                                                Enemies:  our task

                                                                 to develop the craft

                                                                 to gut the structure

                                                                  to discipline the digging in

Late night,

I finger the window frame,

feel the air.  Guilt’s great eclipse

lifts the wind.  This elegy

should not have been–