Tarlton Law Library
Jamail Center for Legal Research

.
Eight months your heart
that blinking flag
mountaineers still carry to the sun
-you came down with only a cribsheet
folded around the light

-it's enough! the air
ignites, cries out
pours down your bones
gutting your throat.
You drink maps
waiting for a name

named Eight.
The July you couldn't find
looms in front
covered with snow -Eight

just born and your heart
one month short
rises as each morning the sun
somehow must be carried down
tiptoe, asleep on its side

and the July you couldn't climb
will always be too dry, too hot
your skin burn out
-a druggist walks past
wraps something for shade
and inside the jar you hear that fire
folding around your name.

July.  The highest month
lost, climbing to claim the sun
without you, step by step

like a small breath
tossing among the snowflakes
or the beautiful shadow from your heart.

.
Where your arm was empty most
you fit blooms  :worlds
looking for each other, stripped
from their roots -even the clouds adrift

oceans cut loose  :Leviathans
gasping forever  :each wave
looking for another

-you warm these flowers
as the shallow pond once gathered them
before the sky had learned to rainbow

to thrash till yellow and red
blue and every blossom still tries
to sweep away its color

its side-kick  :the Eve
it still needs
to climb that pig headed double helix

or fall -to climb
wandering the sky itself homeless  :a sister ship
that points  :a mast cut from a star
different from all others  :the Earth
all Earth is looking for, points

as a magnet hooked into polar ice
spinning day and night outward
-you will toss these beauties

to begin a current  :the arm
that will soften under your breasts

-you will fit petals
into the ground that came loose today
into the pieces, your tears broken off
glistening like feathers.

.
Each step closer, your coffin
crack open as if a great weight
and these flowers sweeter than your hair

-one step more and the Earth
just learning to arch
to rise from a time no one wept

and you are standing, your eyes
filled with seas lost long ago
-I walk with nothing you can hear

or hold together -your small boat
will splinter and under my heel
the rocks can't leave either

-one foot learning to fly
while this ground crawls to safety
-one step more, overhead
coming to an end, folds its wings
diving against your heart
against the darkness growing from this spot
-even the stars expect your nightfall
your hand held out, by now
your flowers and planking.

.
Don't -this frosted branch
is weighing the Earth -one move
the leaves and count all over.
No wonder it's winter again.

Try!  How long can it take?
Don't move your lips-the ice
will only darken-with a knife
it opens your whispers
as if they weigh too much -your mouth
caked open, trying to say something
and on the snow, on your fingers
ounce by ounce hollowed out
and its stillness.

Don't. Holding your breath
won't save time or hiding things -your lips
will close on a soft, summer evening
a breeze start up, a train
crossing some river -deep in your mouth
tasting like one name nearer to another

-don't move!  This branch
is weighing an Earth once heavier than sunlight
than the ice on your tongue -say nothing.
Nothing.  Not even the trembling
that comes down from this tree, closer and closer.

.
Heated over this stuffed manhole
she waits  :a winter solstice, ahead
trees across the ice, in back
the sun still bleaching her hair -she stays

while her shadow sweeps the iron cap
as if a sundial could forecast
the chance for snow.  Or tomorrow.

She can't get up.  Each tear weights more
than the shadow moving without her.
Funerals are like that.  She looks around
at the flowers.  At the cops someone will call.

She's done this before, convinced
the Earth got so big
by hiding all those summers
no one ever sees again -certain

the cry she hears is the baby
she was and listens
like a mother will forever
for her child -the crowd's

been through it all 
and traffic doesn't stop anymore
makes a wide, slow arc
as sometimes your arm around my shoulder
helps someone we don't ever see
keep warm, and we hear that cry
not yet a sound, not yet left the heart.

.
My father was a weaver
-by the dozen, threading spools
the way all silk flows into the sea

-this horse must be thirsty
tugging straw loose  :each strand
gushes along the ground

-he shaved with a soap
that floated and the foam taking hold
some iron-grey streak  :his moustache
almost clanking

-the horse doesn't hear
and this paper bag
bronzed the way a bell
counts outloud and looking up
means nothing now.

Even on the night shift
he worked each stream till the cloth
slowly rolls into pasture
into oak fence rails  :the loom
somehow jams in the distance
needing parts, adjustments, rest

-he would lift a small bag
to his huge head -the light
was never close enough -he ate
this half-light
and the wrinkles around his mouth
as if he was calling for more water

-even now, even this page
wants to be folded again  :a bag
filled with some sandwich
smelling from straw
trying again to root along his throat

-this old horse
half blind, half deaf, half dead
-a miracle to a child

leaning against the rotting fence
filled with apples, with rivers
that carry off forever and the skies.