From JOAN
I spent all my loneliness with you here
speaking in turn to the isle of grass
the velvet-eared cattle & the sawgrass spines
as the coin of sun declined each day I closed the
gates to the field & tomatoes grew in the dark
like the blushing minds of yawning children
guttered candles spilled their pinebrushed light
and bells spelled out the path to vespers
a cold wind blew in blusters upon my spine
& I had more thoughts than there were rocks in the river
but they weren’t heavy to me
not yet not yet anything this was Domrémy
my squire would say later good luck is like a turned key
he would also say that fortune eats her children
**
young and slumped in the faceless hours
of August heat I would prick my thumb &
suck the blood out just to get closer than closeness
to some feeling of being beloved in my own body
instead of waiting for the stillness that only
comes in turning dreams swallowing
the spit as if it were the holy water it was
and nothing was painful & everything was
the sun too hot or too sharp angled at once
the sapphire dusk draping its lace arias
on fence posts the fields sown in secrets
I felt I couldn’t possibly understand
although I stared through the window at midnight
eyes peeled like dry pears in winter barrels
how simple to be locked in the drawer of devotion
for years until it eventually opened
and the raw desire to be monstrous in love emerged
my blue muscles stamped with
an emblem from each lonesome day
I had buried my grace & then drowned excavating
pulling out brick after brick of doubt and shame
there was no hush and it was not like sleep
it was like burning a match until your
fingertip melts and runs to the grain
that year night came when I ate the light
that arrived at the end of the day
until all I could see in the blue bite of air
was the moon as it rose like a roan
that had just slipped its bridle
