the longing for a slate

its smooth, gray skin 

slick with rain

I feel the stars gazing 

their limpid eyes swell

with sweet rain,

and hold fast to the skin 

of limp fronds of 

the lawn grass

a sea of raging 

verdigris,

barren and pale

in the glowing moonlight.

outside the house,

the lawn stilted by sun, dew.

I want to reach across the silent arcs of water

and finger the bark that hastens your diminishing

in to the soft, loamy earth

below.

Those ragged lines

drawn with shaken hand

chalk marks on slate;

Grief, 

is an air with lovely flowers

pale against the soft winter light.

She often dreams of these short journeys

to the soft underside of the hill where

the ground breaks in places,

jutting out slowly 

its crude black weeds

between cracks in the pavement

where night dwells

and steals the sunlight 

in its lair.

sinking deeper, she goes

between the blackness, and the soul of my last dreams,

you’ve lost the wire cages

floating, white and rusted

down to the bottom of this rusted orange

sea.

Sinking fast, the black trees tremble beneath the silent skin of water

their faces pelting like rain against the glass

I feel the heaviness of a blush begin to rise to the surface of my

too slick oily face.

Decide for another time, for another place that steamed windows

cannot replace-

open the door, here 

and have a quick look inside-nothing to see here,

nothing to see.

My body is swollen with river water, 

heavy as lead when you pull me under again-

down we both go, like two black crows tugged beneath the surface

slick oiled

frothing with the vestiges of 

doomed air flowing backwards now

back to the gaping worn out sun.

raced ahead and languidly waved its fingers in the air–

that day we held fast to the sides of the joy ride we stole

in my father’s car-

I breathe that air and wish it back

again.

your frame–teeth, piercing the eyes

with a shine reflecting all my own desire

for your chrome and plastic form;

to take me far as these old legs can run

Faster, faster-

speeding towards the sun–

this my wish:

red bicycles line the roadway,

waiting for my ride.

It is late, and the boughs of trees are heavy with

last night’s rains,

brought low and sinking into the bark of their own 

bodies.

It is the passage, from dew and mourning

from bitter silence coiled and wrested from 

the soil.

It is the going, the rush from seasons 

still evolving

the sands 

still whistling against the 

closed doors of the house where you

once lived

mark these stones

so they may recall

the lives sunk, beneath

the walls of these terrible places;

earth plowed over

barren below dust and dirt

and clumps of mud caking 

her father’s old boots

in the cold ground

she put him,

her last grim task

done, now.

You kept this seat for me

dashingly placed your wool coat over the back of the

black iron chair

so no one could sit here beside you

but me.

I ease these bones onto the hard, black metal

and gaze out at the empty trees,

a moonless night

tangled, forgetful stars

and Paris,

that enchanted sparrow, 

sings softly at my elbow.