You are writing
Behind closed doors
While I piddle about
Putting the house in order
I knock gently
Get no answer
Call your name
Silence
I turn the knob
Push open the door
To find you sprawled
Face down on the carpet

For one terrible moment
A long life without you
Stretches before me
And I can’t seem to think
Or catch my breath
Then I fall to my knees
Trembling, one word
Babe?

You roll over
Smile
Stretch
And tell me what a good nap
You were having
Never dreaming
Why I kiss your face so hard

i live, for now,
in your small blue house
under the wide-spreading oak
your face is everywhere
your voice fills the air
strong, jazz beat, masculine
sometimes I lie in your bed
and let it take me -
your voice -
walk the streets
with you
New Orleans, New York,
San Francisco
carefree, tipsy
sleepless
and I wanna go along
wanna know how the night feels
when the moon is a piece of tea

Purple has always been my favorite color,
Starting with Mama’s lavender bedroom
And the violet birdcage she made
From pipe cleaners and tulle
That hung from the light above her bed.
Wisteria, impossibly beautiful, dripped
In the garden of my childhood home
And I knew it was the color of fairies’ wings
And the robes of queens in story-books
The dusky hue of pansies, grapes, old wine.
So of course you’d be painted purple,
Naked goddess of the night,
Your impossibly lush and beautiful bosoms
Tipped in claret, his breath in my ear a reminder
That some birds are vibrant robin red-breasts
And some are aged feathers, pipe cleaners, and tulle.

One morning they arrive
You walk outside and a blaze of pink
That wasn’t there yesterday
Suddenly is
The sun seems warmer on your face
The birds your personal chorus
The front porch the only conceivable place
To eat breakfast

you lean there, in the corner chair
where he left you, waiting
your mute strings accuse me
your silent voice box calls

there is no music here

Somewhere on the road to North Platte
between Broken Bow and White Horse Creek
easing down toward five below
you sing in your daddy’s truck
with Willie Nelson fading in and out
on a twenty year-old tape you’d made
at the University of Nebraska
while geese fly across the face
of a fat round moon
that lights the snow like morning
on a field where black horses stand
under gnarled trees against a gray barn
beside a rushing river
and my heart cracks open like ice in black water,
tumbling along for the ride.

Across the airport tarmac it blows
Sugar-soft, impossibly beautiful
White ethereal wisps
Like long-forgotten dreams
The ones you cannot catch
In memory’s porous net
Gone

Cocooned
In a small place
Our families scattered
Obligations fulfilled
Rain on the roof
We wear our pajamas
All day, like children
Drink wine, burn candles
Play guitar, nap, watch movies
You’ll shoot your eye out, kid
And want no life but this

A persona poem

Too young to have the words

within myself

much less to confess them

to you

I tread these hills slipping

lightly in your wake barely

breathing so I don’t

flush the quail too soon skittish

as a yearling colt

at your gun blast feeling

smoke on feathers seeing

death as an echo tasting

love like a bird-dog’s sweat thinking

yes, yes

when he drops his prize

blood and bone

at your boots

I am the red wax rose after the melting

I am the blackened wick

There is no light left

No warmth

I am the last puff of breath

Stirring these ashes

Now, even the smoke is still.