Each rib carved with another name for god,
I see your face turning when it’s not
A cheek warped by sunlight, sagging
In the heatwave our heads fractal apart
Into a million shifting versions of each other
There are too many names now to call you
Too many people to hold in one body’s skin
With one pair of sunburned arms wrapped tight
We’re breathing straight from each other’s mouth
Branching our lungs, here where there’s no wind
And we don’t feel the presence of a world around us
Just the jagged edges of two pairs of interlocking hands
We can become anything aside from one whole human
The monitors have been turned off
leaving the rise and fall of his chest the only indication of life
I watch almost impatient
But this is nothing new
He has done nothing quickly in my lifetime
His gentle snores a relief
Unshaven and sparse gray on his speckled head
Nutmeg skin in the dead of winter
against the crisp white sheets
Great effort was put into so few words
And my eyes would roll
As if he must inspect each word before opening his mouth
turning them over in his gnarled hands just to feel their sounds
I urged the conversations along
Never pausing to think
perhaps he has earned the right to live slowly
His body bears the signs of a complete life
but not one cushioned by the comforts money or stability could afford
Yesterday’s nurse asked him how he lost the last two fingers on his right hand
His eyes give a faint glimmer of another life
Only 13 but doing man’s work
The sickle bar of a tractor, he says smiling
But it didn’t hurt
That’s just how things work sometimes
He says, when I question his memory
He is sure it didn’t hurt
I wonder if it would have
had he been allowed to feel
Would he have laughed more
had he been allowed humor and joy
had he a gentle father and been of his mother’s womb
not the quare child of a squaw long gone
His brow furrows into lines deeply carved
creased with pain and grief
But there are crow’s feet too
mapping laughter and smiles
His lips once full and beautiful
fall with each breath
unhindered by teeth long gone
Then offering a glimpse of the past
Each exhale shaping his face back to youth
Like the handsome savages I secretly mourned
shot down by cowboys during morning cereal
I’ve never known him to have teeth
but he did have a preserved grouse
Rusted toolboxes filled with things he no longer needs
Moth eaten books on framing roofs
I wonder how many roofs his hands built
Yet none in his own name
I’ll box the tools and clean out his tiny, rented home
Now he needs a new body
a different life that might’ve been kinder
Maybe he would’ve taken better care
not smoked so many Marlboros
But then again, 81 years is awhile
A butterfly tattooed on his left arm
Purple and blue maybe, faded
I never asked why
In the grainy photos he looks like a star
Beautiful in black and white
Dark and handsome
They called us back to get the final plans in order
A pyre would be ideal a slim canoe, burning bright against grey-green waters
but such things aren’t done today
We will call the number from the billboard
sign the agreement and pay the bill
They will arrive in a shiny black car and drive him to a great metal pyre
I will walk slowly as we carry his ashes
turning them over in my smooth hands
Letting the wind scatter them on the pond he so loved
Feed me to the fish, he said
It’s too hot to think.
Too hot to write poetry.
I’ll drink wine instead.
During the disquieting nights of a pandemic,
we watched you for months grow ever closer
until your conjunction near Christmas.
Jupiter and Saturn, we know you are soulless planets
and that you are truly millions of miles apart,
but it’s been centuries
since we last saw your celestial dance.
Can we be forgiven our fancy?
And a year and half later,
I see you both in the dim daylight
of the sun rising below you.
I am on the way to surgery.
I dream your faces turn toward me.
It is spring now with a break
between waves of COVID.
In your comings and leavings,
we have always looked
for signs and projections
as day melts you into the invisible.
In another life, it seemed,
she danced with him
at the edge of the woods
where they met when leaves
seemed forever in returning
and in the morning were everywhere.
In another life, perhaps a dream,
they danced on the green commons,
their love exposed for everyone to see:
Red and raw, endless, poised for flight
at every turn, at any ready hour,
and changing seasons didn’t change.
Coming to herself for no good reason,
she found them standing high above
the dead leaves and bare branches
that love had become, wondering
at the emptiness, aware at last
that no one would hear her scream.
(after the 2021 digital collage Dance of the Vampires, by Catrin Welz-Stein)
she’s taking some convincing
body aching and freezing
stay seated in somber place
beauty in dorian’s disquiet face
stuck in this world disconnection
water barely conveys a reflection
lines between sky and sea don’t end
i’ve had enough, i’ll stop playing pretend
