finger-cymbal

finger-cymbal,
one-breath,
interwoven.

we are too finely spun
to be other than meshed brass threads,
entwined (rice and sesame).

pressed into a sieve,
honey has the color of brass;
dull sheen warmed

lit inner flame,
closed-hasp—
(this may not even be a love poem).

brine

1.
we are Myriad;
old lives as cobblestones;
(bared-teeth), sunk
in Earth.

Our memories;
(scaffold-shapes,
mica-schist):
loom over us,
from Four Sides of Consciousness:

as the embedded thing in mud (green circle),
as the adobe bricks steaming in the rain (brown dust),
as the smoke from the distant storm (red circle),
as the sour yellow smell of wet chamisa rising from the plain (spinning circle).

2.
when I lived in New Mexico, the
adobe houses would cluster together wetly in storms.

the lashes of rain would darken even the red dust,
under the trucks, and
rusted car shells.

3.
Here, powdered-iron and
Creosote
hang heavy in the air,

and like (metallic) wet
steel wool,
Coagulate,
(inside particles of storm wind,
nestled in their own-made nest).

4.
The wet brine of a west Texas afternoon,
Creeps
through my backyard window,

Reading furtively,
unbeknownst (to me),
the chicken stock and lentils
hum quietly on the darkening stove.

The locusts were already there.

the Locusts were
Already There--

Knawing
on the new
Leaves,
the Tenderest shoots.

the melon vine
I planted in the Spring,
was no match
for the
Hungry Field
behind our House.

Townsfolk brought you Birds and
and you Burned them.
People brought you Dead things that had fallen from Wires,
and

you Cut them,
quietly, with Powder and
Dull kitchen Knife,
in the white shed
Behind our House.

Friends left you offerings on your Doorstep,
and you
Left them to Rot in the Field,
insects
Knawing round their Sockets.

(i found by accident that clove oil banishes your presence),

The smoke from that Field
was Rank,
heavy with the guilt of pollen and corner-dust,
Cloying, Meddlesome, Sweet

I would have Folded myself
into the Flames
for you.

but Mortar has turned to Quicksand
the bricks are falling
as bodies
Heaped.

blue Alchemy bone Powder
Grated,
is
Sieved.
(conch-shells, peacock feathers).

your
Poison,
smoke in my Blood,

Dissapates

Now.

I sit in a
White Room,
With a brand-new Crystalline
Heart,

Rainbow shadow Walls,
Feather-beaded,
Abalone,
and Cone.

Safe
within
Walls,

your Hold has
become
a Skeleton’s
hand
of Ice.

Melted into
a Once-Lattice,
an old Pain Scaffold,

New Invisible
Trace—

Non-Presence.