Prairie Schooner

i    I hear you whenhands reach    for some rhythm to catch        onto: a drum-skin for you

a stretching for your singing

iiWe watched the quiet plight against pliable    skin release         the inkfrom your stillness         say    nine long years &    every time I eat a chickenI think I hear you tell me to stop         calling me Rahab—

your father called         he wants another

iii    Drinktell me your         blurred reflection of the divine majesty:empty windows         deserted train stations    abandoned chariots in a lot like somecherubim's     four faces     four wings feet as calves as burnished [End Page 137]

ivBronze & how they shimmer with your heat

    imperfectly

how they shimmer with your songs

vWe watched the steaming ox    for prophesies     sang song of the lion     song of the eagle        & out        poured ourselves     something    sharp as shaved bricks for awak'ning lightning—

viBut when I tell you        release     my hands    you curlbeneath wing upon wing upon

vii& tell me again: four wingspans for the coal        of it—shuddering whole-bodied in the tips ofbeasting    was the sales pitch queer offered     so

viiiThe violent bloom of    hyacinths & oolong:your drum-skin stretches     I will show you

    homelessness-room     salted avenue     iced expanse        from the North does take you    South & past the wettestwood piles: please I beg of you     take this beast & [End Page 138]

ixThis is good, I know.But the steam    from this morning's oxen    heaves into a heathen &    gives so much heaven—    dampness alights    each neck & Summer'sclimax in abandoned room after

xAbandoned room: you    make bones dry until the shade        of beigeness     & I watch

xiGlowing visitors lose    their bodies to the fire     watching

xiiBuildings stand &    homes burn

xiii    My whole bodydisagrees with this—

xivSo much pressing to the air    as if it were you        body open-to-heat    as if it were youarms stretched like     lake skin iced so that        even the other animals ran    for shade greener     butwe let the grass stick to our joints— [End Page 139]

xvTemple     on the horizon        shimmering—hold

            this tea leaf

to heat—a silhouette

            burning millennial temple         a third whatnot that

xviLet our shadows burn &     release    our shadowsto pining-smoke for we    will never be sealed together again    in rooms of choking-dust & gutted couches        I can reassure myself    but still     timemoves uneasily & so I tell you again: do not

xviiGrieve it. For three hundred and ninety days I watched you lie    on your left side     ribs became dust until one fell out        collected a river     & yet        a mereforty days on the right might ease this or     sing it

    you said, so I AM

here     my eyes were hot-empty        when you let me know you planned to close            the gate on me:

xviiiNine long years & I learn every day    how the lengthening of the soul takes lessthan a minute [End Page 140]

xixStill I collect:    bones reconstituted    all-night living as desert    days of shaved heads    mold & musk    an empty horn of oolong    tea leaf laughing-unwrapping as    the rap rap of muscle & skin &

xxBones     they adhere to

xxiIn twenty-two years     I will offer my collection—    is this not enough to buy        your body back to me?

I collect three drumming sticks    you hold

        the fourth & two x two keeps pace

    rap rap        rap rap            rap            rap rap                    rap

along the Nile     emptied shoes wash up    day after day & across the waters     shores& we collected them togetheruntil you pattered    the morning's rhythms rise    the evening's falling rhythms    but never     the beating afternoonits prophetic visions as your fingers pin [End Page 141]

xxiiWing upon wing upon wax until the sheen    lays down with the seagulls     sing it     you say

how to break a city as one after another tipping    & your father wantsanother drink. Tell me    again: how does a closed     purple hyacinth        in kettle-water            bloom    porcelain & how does an oolongleaf unravel its...