Poem for Friday, October 26, 2012

Harvest

Leaves frolic around us

hitch windy rides find

homes or don't.

                   This autumn you claim me

                   twirl my scarf fringes

                   manage to whisper the

                   ineffable.



                   You claim me with the

                   hues that sough in gusts

                   sharp deciduous and

                   bleeding.



                    You claim me without

                    gray-skied conditions

                    stand before me naked

                    as the birch.



                    This thing we cultivate

                    mustn't be carved or

                    shucked  like remains

                    of a harvest.

                   
Please understand:
                 
                    I won't reduce you

                    to some analogy.

                   
                   
                    You will keep me

                    through the seasons.

Poem for Sunday, October 21, 2012

Effects of Transience

what she would do:

come in with the storms, crush the browning leaves
between her toes. ramble about how she belongs to
the night. how she loves every grain of salt in my
body. how chilly moonbeams feel when they graze
the nape of her neck.

the world wanders among her enumerations. they
are evergreen crown canopies--sky-blotting. she
speaks in Hopi myths, sleeps in the bed of a truck.

sometimes i wake up moving, she tells me. i like it
because the road is smooth and the moths never
bother me. i can see the faces in the stars all parallel
above me. they know i am a recusant. they know
where i am going while i do not.

Poem for Saturday, October 13, 2012

Epitaph

Below

the dates etched in limestone, the implications
in between: people waking from dreams, red salt
fresh on tongues. One savior biding time, counting
the cherubs. Another giving the death nod
behind the concrete. Wordless.

Someone sticking a flag in the cosmos.
Someone breaking a heart in an equinox.

Below them, those words holding hostage
some legacy, a single accomplishment before
eyes became drapes
half-drawn.

Poem for Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Fruit Fly

circumventing the bananas, the white bread
that which vacillates between ripe and rot
that which spoils in the sink.

breeding in the air, biology catalyzed by
strawberry smoothie pheromones
seedless grape aphrodisiacs.

you suck the nectar from my countertop.
my five-fingered shadow lurks nearby.

Poem for Friday, October 5, 2012

Desert Child

i.

she is a summer solstice birth
a compromise in lieu of rain
she is a bear
crawling up the roots of a stalk
she is Desert Child
skinned knees and corn teeth
she visits Dune Husker
lends him her kachina dolls
she is ochre skin
eyes carved from obsidian
she is baked bread
hardened in the sunshine
she is red river clay
burning in her mother's kiln
she is the pueblo
she is the pueblo
blood spilt in the sod
buried underneath the moon


ii.

Dune Husker told her how the
winos call him a bastard. one
man says your daddy must've
been some mestizo who fucked
and fled the rez. another says
stick around boy I'll let you
throw stones at my bottles when
they're good and empty.

Desert Child smiled showing
her corn teeth. the sky is your
father, mine too and everyone's.
He followed her up the mesa
spotted eagles and repeated
their screeches. She wiped the
sweat from his wrinkled brow
smeared it on the sandstone.


iii.

Desert Child's vision:

an old Indian man fed her stars
she swallowed them whole
became a supernova and felt
love. He dressed her in wolf
skin. He choked on his own
faith.

Dune Husker's vision:

an old Indian man rattled off
in the arroyo. he ate the glass
out of the sand. tell me, boy
has the truth knocked the wind
out of you yet? god it hurts when
it does.


iv.

she is a moonbeam
glowing during kiva prayers
she is cactus juice
trickling down Athabascan throats
she is femininity
brown breasts hidden in cotton
she loves Dune Husker
gives him her body on the mesa
she is a rain dance
stomping on the cracked earth
she is language
forgotten by the blue-eyed ones
she is a loom
spinning threads of rainbow
she is the pueblo
she is the pueblo
purple in the night sky
faded by morning breath