duly

in the beginning

        the names on all the graves
        meant something.


memory as place

        right before the river turns north,
        the city always ends.


where things are sold

        on the door of a closed shop,

        a few words hang:
        "stay close to the soul."


fires rising and falling like water

        the mountain
        the silence
        the result
        waits.


the tide

        confessing then sinning
        confessing then sinning

        not confessing,
                 not sinning...


the self-portrait
        
        i lean forward
        i hold a cup
        as if it were a napkin tied around a few dried flower stems.

        i look around
        as if saying "this is how i love."


mathematics

        the sums go taut
        then dissolve
        in their own solution.


as if

        word created matter
        i whisper "you"
        a few thousand times
        before bed.


the passage

       unable to decide which was more blinding--
       the last flash of the burnt-out bulb
       or the unstoppable darkness that followed--

       i step forward
       regardless.


instruction

       "keep it together,"
       he said
       and shook me
       as if testing me.


the physical universe

       my soul exists somehow.

       we walk all day, finding ourselves
       in places important to us.

       the larger the form,
       the stronger the gravity.


1:38 a.m.

       just another chance
       the world's given you.


the pull

       behind strung lights,
       bare walls
       hide white slopes you'd love.


stranger to myself

       a few thousand years
       of listening to water.

       to come to be
       is the real work.

       i wish
       i were here.


collaboration

       a few stray threads
       edge toward each other
       on the skim of the river.


the metaphor

       "like that,"
       he pointed
       away from the coast.


the feast

       i sit down with a revelation
       and don't have to remember anything.


the glade

       the names of grasses and flowers--
       the cold drops mistaken for pain--
       the bright seething quiet--

       falling on whoever
       we might become.


cause, effect

       before i drop the cup
       nothing pleads
       one way or the other.

       after,
       the pieces seem to plead.


the song

       i go still--
       finally reaching what every dancer
       moves toward.


peace

       in the rare moments
       of being very close to birds

       how black their eyes are
       makes sense.


every waking hour

      there is a single button in a drawer
      at the center of every life.

      it waits,
      like all useful things,

      for what it might
      hold together.