Doubled. Branching into leafy slither,
loose green shingles
dangling, the elongated
closed eyes of catalpa pods twin winks
in the laced, windy flutter
of thin hairstrings,
lovers
with nerves for fingers tangling, un-
tangling,
in these avocado labyrinths,
swooping everywhere emblematic
Eiffel Tower-Notre Dame cross coded
human Signifier in its sealed
airless capsule wheeling through astro space
in every bedroom, with all those voices in it,
low
television on all day,
honeyed mutterings from the love tube —
could such a tree be weeping?
With each season's amber
saps eaten away by dissent's
munching caterpillars, by desire's chipped
red nail polish, the five o'clock shadow
sadness leaves on faces shaving themselves
for love, for the tree itself, well
when they were out walking. His lips
like rain opening hers up.
Her hands tucking
his intelligence around them,
the scratchy bark, the tenderness of it
and the welcome: even the uneasy
limbs creaking, swirled in the blowing
white noon of his knife-edged
brilliant joy —
Or later; cool foliage at twilight,
protector from so many sly
flashy streams trickling their mean
undermotifs through the needled
forest floor —
and frog also. Croaker, growler,
clear penetrating triller
in cranberry bogs, in acid-sweet wetlands, lush
percolating grounds for others to grow in, the old story
of royalty come to life, O short prince,
soul-doctor handing out new, smarter
castles for everyone to live in —
and she could have been, was
a cool pond, lovely for him to swim in —
so small he was, so hidden. To be so
tall:
tight pine cone, with brisk
clipped syllables. Giraffe's
delicate smile radiant
as the chewed leaves on its cheeks
among blueberries, New England
granite, even Civilization
and Its Discontents couldn't bury him
nor God either, even the Idea of Him, disappearing
intermittent Star trembling
at the far end of binoculars whose distant
blurred image he bowed to
in rapt silence, but focused on what was closest to him:
antic, frog-hopping up to friends at their most
agonized, burning howls in the night,
with fine cardiac surgeon
gloved fingers he probed for it,
the sullen, never-let-go
splayed web-foot root, the delicious secret
control panel of each pain, then pulleyed it
up to the top branches and loosened it, set it free
to jetstream wherever it wanted to but he —
* * * * * *
Why didn't he go too? She never knew
for certain; because once she'd picked up his crackling
just-below-the-surface
distress signal and greeted it
like her other half, that sadness
that was never to be understood
in his lifetime except
(tentatively),
what could she do, what could anyone do
but follow, hoping to soothe but how? Over her head
in those electric waters
like a starved suckerfish, selfish
with dazzled eyes admiring
she glued herself on for the ride
the minute they met, in a dream
of unstitchable seamlessness they sank
into each other like a single rowboat
for life; like twins grafted together
in all the right spots and joyful: two spinning tops
in gale force winds shaken,
whirling firebirds dashing
barefoot over coals almost choked,
white-limbed but alive, almost Whole,
Accounted for. And to.
* * * * * *
But there were too many brothers
always. And he the smallest in the nest, the goat
trampled upon by crows
jostling. Crowding out all the flyways
he knew but could not use —
Because he was mired in it, paralyzed
by too much light,
stuck in the deepening furrows of the one mind
he could not heal,
though at least he saw himself
(saw all of us) clearly —
What did they do to him,who was here
only a moment ago, in his bright palace fighting
for everyone else, she cries out
like an ice-storm in the emptiness they agreed
couldn't be helped, his breath being her breath being both
and v.v., under the sere rattlings of Science and now God's
rusted leaves scattering down,
the permanence of nothing
except themselves, for awhile —
but stuck all over with his needles, electrodes from a past
that stabbed both of them,
under the chromium flakes falling
on chill swamps, on crabbed, daily orchards
dressing and then undressing,
though he still shone for her, polished himself for her
with the glow of an apple, or an egg
and she adored him, hurtled her arms around him
like ivy that holds up old buildings
until, sometimes, he relaxed
into the embrace of it, the brief room
they made for themselves to live in,
for all the self-knowledge he showered
on both of them, but her mostly —
"Here, let me release these
scrawny, hooked-together-hyphens for you —"
he never let go himself.
At the end, still trying to get out of them,
the locked teeth of cells he could not escape,
he gave himself away to no one, not even her
whom he loved, whom he shouldered up to the tippy, green
topmost canopy, where she almost broke through
only to lean over, yearn down to him
who stayed below, who powered up
everyone's lives but his own —
But after the last rattle
of wild breathlessness, leaves gasping overhead
though she kept after him, whispering,
magnifying him even as he dwindled,
quiet as dirt, as water
eaten to bone and thinner,
as first light seeps across deserts
finally he sat still, in his chair
out on the front porch, with civilization
after ignorant civilization passing,
with wrecked dynamos and cathedrals,
in the toppled infrastructure of uprooted
giant trees short-circuited, the wiring rusted away
in the undergrowth, monumental
as stone, with an emperor's thin lips
still smiling at her, hands fallen open
in his lap, holding on
to nothing now, simply looking up
and out.