MONTHS OR DAYS OR HOURS

lost year we // sharpened our
mole claws // blundered, blind,
out under // that sometimes sun

sometimes cloud // mostly empty,
always unrepentant // our mouths gone,
whispered off // somewhere else, some

where better // to turn our backs
out, sit & unsit // dreaming of empty
halls as lonely as // Heorot, unmonstered

unfeasted, unsung // unpeopled & battered,
all our solipsistic // voices, unmoored from
any true mouth // screaming, coughing

HERE IS OUR LONG FOREVER //
IT UNMAKES US SO VERY WELL

elbows knocking // shall we dance
away to that always // dimming dusk
what use are tongues // if we cannot taste

what use our tongues // if we shout
as loud without // our teeth still true,
our bite as feral // our hunger grown

sup with us // this break fast on
our own lungs // our own tongues,
sink your jaws // wholly separate

from any face // ‘nto your neighbors
heart, we are // so discrete, our
meal we made // the reservation

we have finally kept.

BIRCHES

BIRCHES

twinned and windswayed,

skin torn by the boys,

overeager and dreaming

the scraps are blank paper,

but they will never write

upon them, not about your

beauty, anyway, more likely

it's destined instead to be

just more kindling for

their unwise fires.

THE MOONLIGHT OR HER SKIN [from the vault]

THE MOONLIGHT OR HER SKIN

'nunc tibi me posito visam velamine narres,

sit poteris narrare, licet!' nec plura minata

dat sparso capiti vivacis cornua cervi,

dat spatium collo summasque cacuminat aures

cum pedibusque manus, cum longis bracchia mutat

cruribus et velat maculoso vellere corpus

every night before that day,

for months, he had no sleep,

but his breath caught in his throat,

the baying of the night hounds

echoing in his ears, as he dreamt,

staggering through black woods,

the Huntress looking down

at him from the milky moon,

her blue eyes the clear pools

among the pine forests of his

sleepless dreaming—and after

those restless nights, when that

day finally came, his friends flushing

out hart and doe behind him,

with that dread pool ahead, water

gone still in the silence of his sight,

he knew he would never turn his gaze away—