111.
If the loves you dream of dream you
back
shadows haunt the stuccoed ceiling
like small birds
and there are real birds too on
plaster leaves
baroque resemblances of passing time
your whole body safe in my arms
vertebral rosary that haunts the
hands
don’t say prayers be them
you be the god that answers them
everything is for being and willing
to be
and be for the sake of another, the
other
not much more left of the story than
that
so now at last the story can
begin.
112.
Pieces of fear in the room the child
sleeps
wanderlust of nighttime things
can you swear that chest of drawers
is where it was
sleep is the great healer of the
Irish
a physician who makes no guarantees
sleep lets the world around you
change
thing by thing like children on their
way to school
aftermath their heads are full of
fish
your uncle cleaning flounder in the
kitchen sink
what color blood did you think fish
had
red is always a surprise a wound of
tenderness
where the nice bear lumbers out of
the trees and hugs you tight.
