Dancing in the Night Garden

I've been waiting by a door that has finally opened.
Our dance begins with late jasmine filling the
autumn darkness, settling on our shoulders.
Bats skimming the pond's surface, leathery
wings slapping still, moist air, golden fish threading
through water hyacinths. Graceful black spider,
jacketed in yellow, swaying on her
web. A fat bumblebee sleeping in the
rocking of the lemon basil. We waltz
across cracked red bricks, palm to stubborn palm.
Rusty chains of the porch swing speak in a
whispery sigh- heel scraping on warped boards.
A sharp wind bends the thin pines, bows the
shedding oaks. Warm hand folding in the small
of my back, spinning me one more measure.
Birds whirring between dark branches stitch the evening closed.

Working in the Mannequin Factory, Berlin, 1954

She pours plaster, thickly cold and smooth,
into greased molds; her leg will never be
that smooth-silk is scarce. A charcoaled line
along the calf fools young men, anxious as
dogs. Discarded arms, chipped fingers clutter
damp corners, plaster dust hangs in tattered
curtains, choking the radiator's heat.

Her arms are slender as poplar branches,
bracelets ripple as she lifts a tepid
beer to pinched lips; later she remembers
to smile, mouth so rich young men cross themselves
and pray. A faint streak still curves her cheek,
coldly white against the graying sky.

She leans against the glass dreaming long
hymns of tapered shoes, Italian bags,
choruses of titled hats. The mannequin's
sharp elbows soften in evening shadows.
windows along fashionably clean
cobbled streets fog beneath her parted lips.

Waiting for the last bus, she listens to
the streetlight's low hiss, a cat foraging
in a tipped can, refusing to look back
at the still, eyeless face.

Dancing with Ghosts

Last night I dreamed deeply of sleep
and saw your bleached bones
tangled in a field,
poppies springing from your eyes
and ivy twisting through your ribs
like braided mail.

I tried to gather you in a bright quilt.
but your bones fell apart
and began dancing in the grass
wind singing and whistling
through the spaces where
joints once held tight.

I chastised you for frolicking under the sun:
Climb back on the quilt, I cried,
and you did, subdued.
Wearily, I laid you out—
feet, legs, hands, arms,
in a cedar chest.

Carnival

The fear of death is a private thing-
so you close your eyes
and the black wall of faces
leers back at you, toothless and old.
But open them:
See the city, blazing, bounce off the oily river.
See the Ferris wheel: playing no music,
it leaves those at the top spinning in silence.
See the fat lady, knees hidden by swollen thighs,
drip tears into the sawdust.

Gripping the greasy metal rail,
suspended for a gray instant in space,
a damp breeze carries the smell
of vinegar, of unwashed hair, of too much sugar.
Bile, copper and salt, touches the back of your throat,
and you swallow hard before you drop.

The rushing wind of the rollercoaster
tears strips of sound from the night:
Three throws for a dollar, Mister, and
Your wife throws for free
(where would you hang a black-velvet
picture of Jesus walking on the waves,
unafraid of death or God?).
Hear the cracked strains of an off-key
country band singing Glory Halleluiah;
hear the tinny whine of the carousel;
hear the drunk in the next stall
heaving beer and sausage.

After the spotlights, the flashlights,
the neon, the fluorescent, and headlights,
the moonlight pours subtle and cool
across burned eyes.
Lying under sweat-tangled sheets—
darkness, stillness, quiet settles
blank and heavy-but still you spin.

The sea of black faces grins toothless and old
so you close your eyes.
The fear of death is a private thing.

Burial in February

We are conspirators with the rain,
moving Aztec-like through the fog,
dog smiling sacrificially through
milky plastic, eyes glittering like opals.
Tramping the tender ferns under
my rough boots, shovel carving
a valley in my shoulder-I will not
let you deprive me of my pain.
The smell of sodden wool
tangles with the dirt clinging
to overturned rocks, rich with rain.
Mist curls along the boles of oaks,
rises from the fresh grave:
I haven't been dry in days.

Sunday Afternoon

Snow has fallen all day, unexpected,
uncalled for, unneeded,
white as the ache in my heart.
Branches still flying autumn colors
loaded with heavy powder;
fish in the pond surfacing to
snap at fat clumps of flakes;
stump of the pear tree we cut down
months ago, a black scar;
Pyracantha, burnt orange ladder
climbing to a roof grown
indistinct from the sky.

I have no need for words.
The sleet on the windows,
the slow breathing of you sleeping,
the clock's hum—
our home's soft conversation.
No moon, but the clouds hold all that snow,
night softened to gray; no words can lighten
a sky like that, ease the push and pull that
holds us tight. What is it we won't say?

Under the streetlight a rabbit shivers along
fence posts, shadows long as wet pines,
chicken wire clotted with drifts.
The heaviness of it—the spinning trees,
the sharp tongue of wind,
the fall into the smell of leaves,
into the cold, into you. Wordless.