If we were both
hanging from a cliff
by one hand
you’d tell me how scary
it is to be hanging
from a cliff
by one hand
and we’d talk about
how it makes you feel
and how your hand
hurts
and how the sun
is setting.

I’d be wondering
how long
I could endure
and we’d talk
about how long you thought
you could endure
and then
you’d tell me everything
you learned
about enduring
as long as you have.

I’d listen and watch
night fall
and a light go on
as you suddenly noticed
me hanging
and praised my heroic endurance
and said how ashamed
you felt
to have talked
so long
when I was suffering too.

I’d say that’s okay
and you’d say it isn’t
and I’d say okay
it isn’t
and you’d laugh
and we’d both be silent
hanging
in the dark.

Then
just when I’d think
my hand could not hold on
another moment
you’d find a ledge
yes, you
to put your feet on
and I don’t know how
but you’d help me find it too.

We’d let ourselves down
together
and stand safely
on the ledge
under the stars.

After a while we’d sit
lie down
sleep
and when we woke
we’d kiss each others hands.

Then one of us would make
a good meal
chicken with spice
rice
Chicken Nicaragua
or something
and as the sun came up
we’d eat on our ledge
dangling our legs.

———————————————————————————-
You may astound her

The wife of a friend
passes the half fountain
a colored fish
swimming from window to window
while you’re inside a dream
of a skinny dark girl
whose face matches the ache
and pleasure of desire.

We want and not
hurt and feel this way
then that
do and feel another way
think maybe
do something else
feel something else as well.

Does it all come down
to that?

Faces pass blank
through car windows
holes of grief filled with music and water
and women on the sidewalk
wear just the right thing
to feel just the right way
and help you feel it too.

Take a walk, bake some bread
conquer Asia
you may astound her.
Drink out of the jug
make plenty of noise.
What will your new shape
effect today?

Solicitations, broken bones
a dollar, a poem.

———————————————————————————

The Purpose of Kissing

Ever notice how the smallest
words uttered between lovers
are attached to boulders
too high up the mountain
to see? A syllable
can shake one loose and send
it tumbling to crush flesh and bone
and the lives of children.

Think of it like this: lovers
hold tiny detonation devices
on their tongues, hot invisible
wires attached to distant charges
strategically placed.

But if that is true, then how
do they breathe? How do
they speak at all?

Maybe like this: First
we look into each other’s
eyes and slowly our faces
approach until we touch
our lover’s most dangerous place
with our most dangerous place.

We kiss to breathe. We
kiss to talk.

If we’re still alive, we
kiss some more.

———————————————————————-
Hey

What if there were two
of you, or three, and I
could dress you all
to undress you all, or watch
you hike your skirts and show
your thighs, all six of them
for me to dive among?

When I burst I’d make sparkles
and when you burst, all three
of you, I’d rise to fall into the moon.

Or so you’d say for you’d forget me.

I’d settle there and shine and see
you wear me pretty in your hair.

——————————————————————————————————-

Today in Three Parts

Morning over the mountains lights a deer
and from the porch I woof to perk up the dog.
I like to watch him look—his normally twitchy
self stands statue still—eyes, ears, muscles
aimed a hundred yards across the grassy
shade to the yellow deer. He stands that way
for a long time, until the deer moves away
behind the shed. My wife is inside behind me
her Buddhist buds whispering a dharma talk,
eyes closed and turned from the window. I woke
after a dream in which I was tete-a-tete
with the lovely visiting President of Argentina.
We talked about the unintentionally funny
things we’ve said while speaking a language not
our own—she was tilting her forehead to touch mine,
looking over her lashes into my eyes,
her hot South American breath on my cheeks
and when I woke my naked wife was squatting
next to the bed, her white skin pretty
in the light, her body a teenage virgin still,
forty years since, searching her bags
for a headache pill.

I wanted to take her by the hand and lead
her down the stairs and bend her over the kitchen
counter, rub olive oil on her thighs
and flanks, but she rummaged with a face so close
to suffering I wondered what she’d think if she knew
what I was thinking. No, I didn’t. I felt
her in my body so strongly I had to turn
away and stare at dawn in the hollow and listen
to her bare feet slide across the floor
to the stairs and down where she was silent.
I waited and followed and made her coffee but barely
looked so clearly her oil gleaming skin
was in my mind. She took the coffee, thanked
me, closed her eyes and reclined back
into her dharma.

Later we walked a muddy trail pocked
with bear prints clear as cartoon tracks
heading up the trail with us. We were following
the bear and didn’t want to, so turned toward
the ridge on a hard grassy trail and walked
in not-quite-bliss, not-quite-ignorance.
Shadow brindled sunlight past pines
and her headache was long gone. I watched
her walk and told her my dream, my almost
lover, her forehead, her breath, our laughter.

——————————————————————————————
Vertigo

In the time it takes to watch
her pass, I smell her with my eyes,
feel the comet craving burn
and make my skin melt into hers.

Something in me dares the grave,
the thrill and crash, no sleepy
fade, her cliff that begs me jump and fly
—what a life, what a death to try.

————————————————————————————