there always has to be a night
when it gets that cold finally and the
clouds like cattle guards hung
from wherever who would imagine
in such a darkness the form
it takes the quiet fashion
of the spears and wheels of things
unseen being too small.
——
the night here
when it snows first and
not yet severely the winter
she was completely naked
beige carpet fine
to be on not
vacuumed but not so bad
fine enough to breathe in.
——
wanting to be cut
in half lengthwise she wanted
all of her skin on the carpet
organs left to dry out
in the cold light overhead
thinking
no one will find me
in this house
till the rent’s not paid
and they will have to
come.
——
they always wanted out
anyway the heart the brain
lungs that couldn’t
work any more because
she said
to no one being alone
she said
poetry demanded their failure
they wanted to see the world
without me.
——
quiet dappling of
moonlight a crowd
shuffling home from
a late game
a reel of film passing
without ceremony
a low sky and she
was there it was snow
but she could not feel it
naked but
she could no longer
see herself
the whole drama
of having a body
melted into the
winter
and she felt nothing but wind nothing but
nothing but and the wind
the breeze but not so cold
nothing there but
the blue scar of something
long ago done.
——
she was inside it now
among the houses and the river
in a dull eyed city
awake in the winter.
——
then he opened his mouth
she had not noticed him
i wish you had not come here because
i didn’t want to see you here
i didn’t want this thing to happen here so
whatever i say cannot hold me at fault
because you made me say it here.
——
but it’s difficult to live the way we do
in the current year
seeming to be so caught up in ourselves
that they say you’re a narcissist
for taking pictures of yourself
every day with some
mundane thing like brunch
or the sunshine on trees
but it just shows how much
they know don’t it
a picture’s a ticket to anything else
and they don’t see
it’s about other people
how well they do about
being with them
greener grass
about escaping yourself
——
what the fuck is
a selfie anyway but
a fantasy of a kind of yourself
that can be judged because seen
since parts of you can’t ever be looked at
you’re fucked up
——
so you give them the picture
so others can live in a fantasy of you
and you keep the negatives
because you must and she said
fuck you this is my dream
and you can’t fucking vomit this all
back to me not in my own
dream
——
the wind had this kind
of resentment in it
because it was impatient with her
rushing past them and ordering the snow
hither and yon he was gone and
she began to imagine all kinds of people
old bosses crushes from the sixth grade
distant relatives and a homeless man
who asked for a greyhound ticket once
on a hartford summer night she was
too nice she went inside to get the cash
but the a.t.m. was out of order and
a security guard told him off
but she didn’t go back
into the warm night she
waited inside for the bus
——
snow was beginning to conquer the roads
now from a benign dust
up and in from the curb
the city like a comatose old tramp
dying
year in and out by the snow
just like her
she was also a dying city
——
with heavy eyelids
and an inability to dream
visions slowing
like her pulse
now them
now there and brief
joys old
inaccessible moments
——
history’s mostly good
for touching yourself
that’s what it’s there for
she thought
——
everybody’s just got different kinks
so folks fight
hallucinatory midwestern geometry
houses and fields moments of clarity
but no theology she thought
a land like this has evaded
creation people tried
as best they could
in lieu of divine
instruction
——
still in the whorl of
heaven she lay
above the trillion lenses
of the orbiting land
every flake a magnifying
glass
and her skin burnt in
the winter breeze and
the land spun faster
houses and trees lost
in the land’s whiteness
her thinking
i know exactly what i want how can
i not die knowing it will never be mine
i must awaken daily and know
he saying you have no sense of yourself
life is a mystery you are wrong to think
things are only such a way feelings are also
a kind of illusion a terrible kind
a sixth sense and
a succubus in you he saying
——
fuck feelings kittenfish
you are young
laugh
and you have joined the joke
the whole universe
is a cabaret kittenfish
i hate the sadness in you
there’s no art at all
in being sad.
——
and she never woke up
she did her work
meetings proposals
grants and grants tomb
call a charge anyway we
have thousands to lose
before the job’s in danger
she walked the streets
there are witnesses who say so
but she was still up there
still listening
snow and gentleness
still dying
and months became
even a year
and then two years
up in the hungry sky
he spoke until he was hoarse
spoke past being hoarse spoke his way
back to health hoarseness
meaning nothing to
a ghost and because she
had forgot that she was alive
and he was not even really there
she made a kind of peace
with life in hell
——
thinking
she was past changing
snow and snow
the horizon obscure
snow but slowly
becoming far
the one who never was real
yammering in her ear
about him and the problem
with herself and the
suffocation of nights alone
in the world
she didn’t know
it was he who was dying
——
the fantasy of him
roped to the secret moon
disappearing slowly slower than
you know across the vapor
of winter
people say she was on the third floor
of the library with some books
early in the semester a Tuesday
too early for the rush but
some saw she
well
who can believe she was there?
——
she was still up in that sky
the same cold night
the same place and
suddenly
well
who can believe she was there?
——
she was the sea
well
she was Postberg flowers
in season actually
she was alone so
how can
anyone say?
——
she woke
but had not been asleep
he was gone
and there were no others
no memories
no songs stuck in her head
blue white dark below
and blue white dark above
blue dark left
and right
the breeze the snow
nothing else
felt in her whole
body
and she
breathed.
——
who can say even
whether she dropped the books
they were
hardly books
they were doves
she set them free
free and
free
and
that’s just it
some harried freshmen scandalized
but that open-ended kind of free
and they flew away
like birds.
——
golden cloudy light
it wasn’t morning
it was a dream only the vast
endless haze
mystical and calm
no one there but birds
surrounded her
sang as the snow fell
minor notes she never heard
but knew
ground and city
awaited her finally
the whole world
demure and
attentive finally
hers to command.
——
so it was that
once she was
alone
she
was in the land
in the golden fog droplets
of melt on her arm
new garments warm
the one who could only think of
herself in the eyes of
others in their throat
their gut
in dark morning misery
in the shameful light of day
in the lanky adolescent shadows
the sun makes and its senile
end in his eyes
his real eyes
real as salvation
hazel and white
the navel it seemed
the universe.
——
in that library
the long night suspended
above the city
wherever
who knows?
——
but she had been a lover
had been a monster
disfigured and martyred
unimaginable and hideous and
suffering and noble
pitiful syro-phoenician atheist
gorgeous demon pouring
out confessing confessing confessing
wishing to die to disappear to do
whatever necessary
this nun this child
this goddess
this abortion
this absurd slut
this weeping self-parody
fleshy universe of rotten milk
and athena herself
she was whatever
was necessary
——
so much
but not
herself
on the last real night
of the winter dancing
cynosure of all eyes
thinking
what a gift
a miracle
to be again
in your own body thinking
thank God
for the snow.
