41

a barred owl

north of the river

sounds rolling tones

against still air

alone and longing

looping regret

through joy and

hopeful darkness

who cooks for you?

who cooks for you?

this ridiculous question

when the food is gone

and we should be sleeping

together

while the deer retrace their paths

and the snow melts along

gutters filled with leaves

of every shape

again

as though nothing

can be said

enough

that question made of only sound

40

I knew you, by your hat first
tilted just so

then your smile

the rough world between

grin and grimace

I recalled short, churning songs

and your ability with

a steel string

the blues

honkytonk

that calloused thumb

on your drinking hand

drumming

the bass against time

your hat

tilted just so, rocking

above workhorse guitars

before all this 

nothing

has changed

we knew what we were doing

so why such sad eyes?

I do not recall your name

39

ascending the totem pole

looking down now

as it was when

your hair was long and blonde

when lean women, sun-browned and

wild, walked their long, slow arc

atop dolerite walls beyond

the endless pillar

that strange, aching work of an angry sea

but ascension was never the problem

was it?

ascending the totem pole

then

because no hardman had yet

was easy

climbing, weightless

reaching across, shifting balance

lifting your body

only that

higher – forever

“climbing… that was a young man’s game”

you said - years later, near a piano, in another world

softly, and not a word more of it

but instead

a song, weightless

reaching across, shifting 

lifting your voice

only that

higher

ascending

looking down now

as it was when

forever

38

four swans feel no cold

on black water

heads below

feeding

the dog, sick and shivering

can’t look away

but we can walk only so far

until a cracked tide takes

the shoreline back

and so

the steep climb to the road

up

ice, this

simple treachery

turns the old pavement glass

translates rain

into, unrolling a shimmering

crystaline world

from the river to the road

the swans can’t see

me falling, hear

me curse it all to hell

heads below

feeding

the dog can't look away

37

the hands talk now

litanies of each

sculpted shadow - doves

faces, dogs in

gnarled hieroglyph

backlit so as to

in order to

in vain

try to

see the picture

where your smallest finger

becomes the horns of

mephisto, or

no, his tongue

uncoiled into light

this yellow flood

try to bend

inward

your thumb in

such a way now as to

because of

in lieu

of a forehead, a fist

still forming - and what

is notable remains

how all humor

is lost

the hands talk

in little words between

the light and walls

the yellow, yes

now lift each

of all the longer fingers

higher, until you

see some

truth