To dust you shall return.

When I was born, my mother says that I

came out in a sack of water, and that this

is why I have always loved the ocean.

When they bombed Hiroshima, all the

people turned to ash and blew away to

other lands.

When my grampa was eight he tried

to dig a hole to China, but only got halfway

before dinner.

We are all part of the earth, the sacred dirt-

that sticks under our fingernails and to

the knees of our blue jeans. When we die,

we come back as countries that have yet

to be discovered.

salt.

I have a wife made of salt.

We haven't made love

in 35 years-- it would ruin her.

I don't carry a picture of her

in my wallet, I can't stomach the questions.

Instead, I carry a picture of some woman

I got from a store-bought frame. Her

hair is brown. She looks

happy, and real.

My salt woman has tears like the sea--

I let them run down, I let them freeze.

I think she is brave-- my wife...she just looks

and looks and never turns around. Her sin was-

peeking behind her.

Eat me. (sort of a cut-up)

A tranquilizer--
at home, at the office,
in court, under
the tongue. It makes up
for the absence of God,
or your widow's weeds,
or chemistry's uncompassionate sleep.
You really should settle.
You really should take the edge off.
This is your only buyer-- dissolve it,
swallow it, and wash it down--
there is no other devil left.

Trapeze ease. (a cut-up)

In the stillness- hushed,
astonished air- the weight
of the body has failed
to fall. Alone, he lacks wings.
Unfeathered, he crouches;
he plots, he threads himself through
the newborn arms at just this moment.

Merely. (a cut-up)

He wants, he wants,
he wants a teaspoon
of ocean- with his eyes,
with his ears. In a word,
he is filled with freedom
and came to be stars-in his own way-
a crystal's childhood
in the herd.

It goes deeper than murder.

Imagine the house is on fire. Imagine
I am on fire. As I avoid the worms, turn
a wine glass on its side--watch as the liquid
quietly slips-- as the flames pulse and lick
my thoughts about the face of Jesus. I resolve
to be weaponless; you resolve to sever the hand
that reaches for the doorknob of my release. If this
is hell, then I am a dog-- bound to the post by the chain
fashioned with my teeth. If this is hell, then I am
at fault for missing the train, the subway, the airplane.
If this is hell, then I announce with finality that you are
a bastard.

Women and war

Walk under foot,
under me, and understand
that I cannot play the violin anymore--
the strings are cut and I am
cut. And you should not be here so late--
drinking and smoking, and telling
stories of then. I was a girl, you were
a girl, and we thought we were
women. No doubt that the war played
its part in our parting, but we cannot blame
all on men. Death and change were indeed
everywhere, and our love was not safe from
those blasts. Perhaps we needed the change,
the distance, to teach us how to grow older and not
feel badly about it. It is difficult to explain what
was happening internally at that time, it was so
long ago. But I will say three things:
I am no longer angry with you, I do not wish
for you to stay, and I am still learning
what it is to be a woman-- in war and out.