Watermark

Snapshot 17 August 02005

I am waiting for the sky
to fall. I am waiting
to be wrapped in its blue
cloak. I wait for this pain
in my shoulders to grow
into wings. I wait for
the one who can lift me
without effort. I wait for
the people in this book
to step out and fold me
in. I am waiting for winter,
for this dream to open
into spring. I am waiting
to wake up.

I sit in this room with
the other petitioners,
with the flat wood tables,
with the magazines
and their glossy pages.
I am waiting for my name
to be called. I am waiting
to be told what to do. I am
rising to my feet. If you call
my name, shall I follow you?
These altered windows
shed the sun like water.
There is nothing out there,
on the other side.

[Belated] Snapshot 10 August 02005

August, the afternoon
of the year, when the civilized
retreat to shelter and shade. 

I wake early, before morning
climbs over the mountain. I wake
hot, distressed. I run away from

my dreams. I wake in dampness,
and sleep again. I wake late
in the morning. I wake in wet

sheets. I dream of volcanos,
and wake with this heat on my
face. Last night a wind came

through our courtyard. It snapped
the top off the birch tree. I woke
this morning to the whining snarl

of the arborist’s saw. The drowsy
hours. If there is conversation,
it is languid and undemanding.

If there is skin on skin, it is slick
and slippery. The air is heavy
and smells of smoke.

[Dream] Snapshot 27 July 02005

I am wearing someone else's shoes.
I stole them, but they were left right
out on the street. They are plastic pink
ballet slippers, stiff as hardened leather.

These shoes fit, but they are are made
of poison. Someone has neglected to fill
the aquarium; goldfish are swimming,
gasping, in air. I receive a threatening

note, in code. What is, or is not, real?
These people are merely ghosts. So many
languages I do not speak. Even if I were
to set out now to learn on a magic

boat of talent and time, some would die
before I could reach them. A voice speaks,
clearly: This is about a child. This is not
about comfort. This is about sadness.

I want to see the mountains. I want to see
the glacier. I am totally outclassed.

Snapshot 20 July 02005

I will not speak of it
though sun speckle the ivy
with yellow light
and foxgloves sway
in the breeze.

I will be silent
through heat and stunning
slices of rain; through
the river’s decline
to its grey-pebbled bed.

Though the air
turn orange and thick
with fire, I will say
nothing. I drift like a ghost
through my own life.

Snapshot 13 July 02005

I wake in pain, enter this day in pain. Young
osprey circle above the swallows. A man
in the park paces under the trees, swinging
a metal detector. The tables have been moved
together into one open space; a herd of picnic
tables, green on the green grass. Heat. Bees
hum in the foxglove. This garden is tired. Rose
petals litter the ground. The lilies open,
beautifully. Why do they not move me?
Why is my heart not pierced?

Snapshot 06 July 02005

It is the time of the dark moon, and thick,
heavy days. This grey morning, swarming

with swallows, gives way to a blue noon.
The hem and sleeves of my favorite

lavender shirt are tattered and thin. It has
a fashionable hole at the shoulder, where

the seam has relented to the insistent
pull of time. It is the time of remembering

that tightening at the groin; that tightening
that demands loosening. A tall brown man

strides along the river. He pulls his shirt
off over his head in one graceful thoughtless

motion. A red motorboat, Stars and Stripes
waving at its bow, clatters upriver, startling

shorebirds up from the banks. I see this day
through a wavering haze, move in a slick

skin of dampness. Have I ever been loved?

Snapshot 29 June 02005

I dream of children I have known, women
now; fickle, graceful, demanding. A stranger
consoles me. This house is encased in fog.

It is like a shell, this house. It encloses me
from winter. Summer washes through like
water, waves of scent and passing. Science

tells me my mind is made other than yours.
Set us the same destination and we will arrive
at the same moment, but travel separate roads.

This must be, then, why I travel alone. West
of the divide they forecast showers, morning
and scattered, with evening thunderstorms

and fireworks, from which Sierra, an aging
Great Pyrenees, ran last night and wanders
without collar or tags. The wild dark lilies bow

down of their own heaviness. Aphids attack
the honeysuckle; it will not bloom. Humming-
birds make do with clematis and columbine.

The parakeets chatter and complain. I have
left them to each other for weeks, and now
they greet me, these hands that bring millet

and water, fruit and seed, with a great fluttering
of fear, threat, and refusal. When I withdraw
they stretch out wide their blue and white wings.

Snapshot 11 May 02005

Because I do not write, tulips fill
with rain. I lose track of the moon.
The air is damp and heavy with spring.
Cloud-white parakeet gently cleans

the face of her blue mate. Overnight
cottonwoods leaf out and this morning
pale blossoms grace the ash trees.
This orchid stubbornly continues

to bloom. On Friday, that unlucky
thirteenth, my fifty-seventh birthday
falls. The black cat crosses and re-
crosses my narrowing path.

Snapshot 05/05/05

Because I do not write, ink dries
in the pen. The moon hides its face
in rain. Tulips fade. Dreams scatter
into frailty, they putter along on canes.

Cupboards empty and shopping
leaves me exhausted on the chaise.
The dogs complain. A neighbor
clears the rain gutters. A small child

shovels puddles with a dust pan. One
friend wonders where I am; another
hunts temple windows at an auction
in Bangkok. The tulips' petals drop.

Snapshot 20 April 02005

MP3 File

I receive a visitation in the night
from John Paul. He is throwing off
his white robes. He is tap-dancing
in ruby shoes. These mornings
are cold, the color of steel. Fresh
snow in the mountains, little petaled
suns in the flowerbeds. Friends ghost
up from history, emerging through mist
like special effects. Here is Richard
Greene, blood at his temple, pistol
still smoking in his hand and here
JFK, Bobby, Martin Luther King,
the famous and the intimate all lost
together. Terry Schiavo floats past
on a cloud of pale parakeets. Judd
places his hand on my head. Squirrels
are ravenous with spring, trees
filled with complicated song. Joan,
with the certainty of the spiritual,
tells me to take my time.