Into the Desert
All day I wanted to seep into the red rock
bake my bones with sweet heat
char my eyes to clarity
fashion a sling
carry my heavy heart
into the cool darkness of your core
All night I wanted to pour the stars into my skin
feel the pinpricks enter my marrow
tenderly capture the cricket’s cry
float to the universe of stars
and want more than I could see
The Way Things Open
The way things open
we half hear
the clanking in the darkness
as mind shadows grow long
in the unbegun places
Looking for god’s bargain
in blue notes
in tunnels burrowing beneath mountains
we arrive where we started
in full sighted blindness
From
I come from the valley of figs and dust
highway 99’s radiant heat in summer
tule fog blinding in winter
I come from words that bleed on my skin
secrets held in soft white containers
a kind of falling inward
I come from men living in the ground like moles
whiff of oleander scenting citrus groves
irrigation canals swallowing children whole
I come from the swayed back of a pale palomino
traveling tales of the hound
praying mantis killing in the pantry
I come from hushed air cutting through bulrushes
deer mice dancing in cotton fields
whispers so far away
they beckon me back
if just for a brief moment
Specialist
Every morning a pillar of smoke slips off my body
pretends to be me
reading the Beckmann thermometer of my heart
releasing the sticky aroma of bone oil
Images of bodies I don’t know
slide past my eyesight
you go out the gates, you inhale at that moment
when you come back, then you exhale
On the bus
the man in the beautiful yellow overcoat
does he see?
does the laborer with bucket and brush
grab my sight
as clearly as the old woman
who clutches her son close
in fear of fate
does the saxophone
wail every evening
because it hears the exhalation
Does my pillar touch your body
in ways you’ll understand
or does it slip back into itself without notice
Vista Trail
I don’t know how long it took
my body to finish
its electric dance
a halo of sparks encircling me
Perhaps a saint’s crossing
created the shadowy quiet
that rose from me like exhalation
Sturdy silent grandfather trees
watched the awakening
my bloodied shin
a kind of baptism
on the forest floor
Floating the bed sheet over the mattress
catching the freshly laundered scent
reminds me to tell him
the clear liquid floating downward
into the blue metal tub
needs restraint
like dipping wafer into wine
this simple act elevates
