you force me to confront
The connectness of all things
People who would be strangers
Become intimates of a kind
A field of wild heather
Bowing in the wind
Matter and energy make up these currents
Of air and light
Which bring me together
With the face of a child
I could not keep
She changed us both
Shaped the horizon
Into “before” and “after”
Please, Love,
Spend all these afters
Near me.
you say you have rethought
the harm to “the children”
In the unknotting of us
These children?
So vivid
mixed-beautiful faces
Ours together
raise all the quotidian questions
Of how
How do you unmake a bed?
Unknot a tie?
Untie a knot
How do you
Unbreak a vow
Unmend a wound
Unfeel a blow
To the face
That is my answer–
our conjoined knots and ties
In their eyelashes and knitted souls
Inseparable into parts of “mine” and “yours”
So close
your eyes, my love
And remember
All our sprawled splendor
Together
it only takes one anchor to hold a boat
One candle to light a room
One spring to start a river
One voice to sing a song
This ring is a foolish gesture
Which will one day constrict your hand
This ring is a token
Of all the tragedy and light we
Will make together
All vows are binding before
The Lord, my dear
Not because you are pretty
Not because I am good
But because these words will always be
Our aboriginal children
Dare you
To return them whole
To their original Owner.
i neglect the housework
To run my hands
Down the spine of our long
Intercourse together
We-2-almost-grown-up on that narrow bed
So close
To street traffic
I cup
So many things
In my hands, against your chest
Your beating heart the
Metonymy of love
This phrase you have given me–
Someplace soft and safe
I will finger it as the beaten ring of gold
Hole run through center
On a ribbon strung across
The cave of flesh
Where neck meets bone
Tokens of something deeper than the
Two of us
Words spoken in secret
Cells knit
Together in my womb
Someplace…
Someplace…
Tell me again, my love
…soft and safe
