S T A N D – I N

don’t be fooled

                        while the others sleep

where there is no grace

                        Grandmother takes her watering can

imagine none

                        I listen at the window

my body no longer

                        night in the mountains

takes any pleasure

                        leaves no hint

what mercy in that?

                        not even the lake

no pleasure in the moon

                        nothing to see

now men have walked there

                        except my face

if I walk I go in the morning

                        a sliver of her over an azalea

when the sun has emptied the sky

                        I want her to tell me

the oaks, the road—it all looks larger

                        if vanity ends

and I large enough to observe

                        once she dug up stones from her creek

today at the lake it occurred to me

                        mailed them in a jewelry box

the dogged face that children make

                        they were the color of my knees

when they throw rocks into water

                        after a woman, mean and late

without shadow or echo

                        pushed me from the bus

V E S T I G E S

Your forecast says storms to break

over this building. Such water I believe

I can drown each brick.

In place of this building, a hole

where I speak to you. Go ahead

Give up my bones for an echo. My voice

carries on smoke.  A lament of blight

which takes over your hole.

Watch our kitchen float away

on fatty breakfast kisses.

Sink the neighbors with their noise.

Tract of nothing when it came time

to fell the last stand of chestnuts.

Burn the timber and the timber

is sputter and blaze—is nothing you can hold.

Bury the cinders and the cinders

will answer only to the earth they’ve charred.

Same earth as when I give up your body.

Keep only an oracle bone.