you're gonna burn your house down

(edited)


you stood on that hill. you saw the fragility
of the fields, finally the wind as fugitive air,
your dad's hands as flaccid fists.

was i any help? here have my anger,
my absence, my fear of absolution.
will time be fodder for us or dirt
in a shallow cut? you opened
and leafed through

death like a stained magazine.
you stood alone on the hill behind your house.
they asked how could a creature small as you
be capable of so much ruin?

.

there is rain on your windowsill.
your uncle jay blazes below in the side garden.
you turn the pages of anna karenina.
an ugly edition. my hand up your thigh.
in the kitchen your mother cleans dishes.
your sister dries them.

your hair is so long.
your skin is so deathless.

.

in the ashes there are answers:
age is aloof, like fathers. like the wind.
you were alone on that hill. now
its old moss and alders are sooted black.
those who asked have learned
you are only small the way
a mind would be, if held in a hand.

nadine (song)

she is a hole in the grass

a dead patch in the field

my perfect lover and i could lie in otherwise

where my perfect lover and i could lie

it's a hole dug out with crow beaks and lies

crow beaks and lies, crow beaks and lies

she would like me to lie in her alone

resigned as a stone and to die

i am no ghost and i won't die that way

i won't lie in her or cry

when i fill her back in with dirt

when i shovel her in with crow beaks and lies

crow beaks and lies, crow beaks and lies

nadine, nadine, my black eyed nadine

i can't lie anymore

the mountains feel stronger from far away

i want an honesty i can wrap in wool

sweaters and to draw waned 

moons on a wrist just as 

braceleted. just as white. love wasn't 

always an empty pocket

and i remember when my hands

were not shaped out of ash.

i could sit near open windows,

i could hold a hand.

i wish i still had the wingspan of a thief.

back then the mountains were only shelter.

you're gonna burn your house down

there's rain on your windowsill.

your uncle jay blazes below 

in the side garden. you have skin

so deathless and hair so long.

am i worth it to you? anger, absence,

this fear of absolution. 

how can a creature small as you

cause this much devastation?

in the ashes we'll find the answers to some things.

we will figure age is aloof, like fathers. like the wind.

i will learn that you are only small 

the same way a mind is small. 

oak drive 1998

beads rattled in the backdoors

all summer. the hardened grass

and wasps under the spirea

thorned our ankles full of poison. our

chins got sharper, we aged

away. our mothers were rat traps.

at night they filled their palms with black

beads from the doorways. when they turned

in their garden chairs even in moonlight we could tell

their eyes were blacker.

nicholas was the bravest, he stole two.

he would thumb them in the yard like prayer beads

and he died before middle school.

a dying bear

the summer held him

warmly as a mother might

kept his muscles taught teeth

clean eyes focused and brilliant

then rain came

falling slowly with fir needles

from the higher boughs

the afternoons became hazes

stones in the roadside grass

chipped his teeth

in the night he either walked

or stared. after the eighth

day of rain he walked the high river

but got tired before daylight

rested in a cedar hollowed by fire

while outside the wet darkness shivered

then the snow came but no sleep

on the first night he stood in a clearing

near a dead hunter's cabin

sharp ice cracked around his lips

one eyelid frozen closed

ribs like dead sticks under his fur

he stared at the darkness on the edge

of the clearing and it closed in

he saw the ocean once when he was younger

it was the only other time

he'd ever dreamt there was a god

the dogs

on monday

i'll create something

new.

it will

devastate the living

i've been doing

as of late. my hair

smells like devil

when i wash it.

on monday

we will catch

the wind under our wings.

today is sunday.

the dark on the horizon

spreads like ants on honey

and the dogs remember

they have teeth.