For the Time Being
 
Thick creases in air
its density reticulated
by gradations in
moisture, pewter
 
glowing sliced into
by a cleaner darkness,
gills against milk-
opaque flesh.
 
It is difficult to accept
the feeling of an absence
 
of heat at this
time where
 
the overwhelming sensation being
felt, I have felt once
before, I now also
feel, and which conjures
 
hunger. Hunger
now surrounding my encounter
with a music I think
I have never heard. This is out-
 
standing. The stars painful
grommets in the banded
 
fibers of sky. Hurting
me or is it darkness
 
itself. How beautiful
is this,
can this be, is this
remembered
 
past winters now
in another season or
a different episode of
dredging that which
 
lives beneath
swollen organs. May I
 
be excused. Tell me
 
something that I
can touch.
 
 
From One of Three Paintings in A Series
 
Is it that she is
gripping her-
self or is it that
which makes her
 
skin glint, excess
flesh pooling around
her elbow on the
arm’s other side.
 
A triangle of
shadow, triangle
of fabric, the fabric
that makes the
 
shadow, is it that
there are nothing but
triangles here,
really. I think of it,
 
our eyes must be
pressed against her
dress, folds on it
that we see but could
 
not see if some one,
if I, did not tell us
to see them. Is it
Desire itself.
 
Is it she who
holds us here, where
the cold is still
young
 
on my window, on
the window’s other side.
Tell me to stop looking
and I will. I will
 
press my face against
the glass so that
I might imagine
it again. Pressing.
 
 
Waking
 
Who never asks or will
     if there will be
a chance of rain. Because
 
the moonlight tells
     me nothing but reasons
not to think any
 
thing other than a way
     to see my footsteps
beneath the stars.  Warmth. Some
 
times apple skin
   distends against finger-
pads their prints not
 
changing detectably and I
     can never cannot ever
answer what is wondering
 
what is it that I wonder
     so instead wandering
deep and cold water in
 
dreams tasting strawberries
     none of us could
identify the species of.
 
About how much
     white there is typically
beneath the leaves.
 
Because they are living. Grass
     wet. Or so I remember
 it, the imagery emerging
 
from the way
 
the seeds are packed. Their smell.
     In rain. Light now. Raise
them.