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Because someone thirsty enough to trust Old Testament wisdom followed the deepening greens and found a spring, silver in the shadow of blue ridges, I can kneel beneath this spill of willow limbs a century later and drink water risen from roots to enter the evening through a spout, the way Cherokee stories say the first people were born, washing into the world of such trees whose bark, like the water I cup to my parched mouth, tastes leafy and sweet and has the power, the old ones say, to heal.

Prologue Willy Loman’s reckless daughter flies quietly, fluttering like a silk-moth behind me blocking my life, my scenes in whichever stage direction she wants. Sometimes at night I can feel her dialing into me, her ringing calls like an imperial decree. When she sleeps she crashes, like a car into the guardrail of my ambition. Her curse like a poison I cannot smell, an asphyxiation of the self by the self, that hell and hard sell. Split personalities, we dream through the night, of our merger and acquisition, in her half-moon light, Not even my husband can feel her there between us—a secret contract under seal. When I awaken, her irises touch mine; an awful, indecipherable fault line. She’s a character in search of an author, a devotee, trying to recount her history through me, until I channel her. She’s like a phantom limb, hymn to the invisible. Her shameless whims, the subtext of my lies. Under her tinted hair the forest murmurs, becomes a thought, or prayer. Until her thoughts tumble into mine; colors bleed. In the morning, I’m overwrought— My patrilineal kin, she begins to wear thin, when she undoes hospital corners I’ve tucked so gently in. Her cool white rising is meringue completing— the high-pitched silence of our congealing. She was always ceremonially unfolding his white shirts, unpressing the folds in my circumstance. I did and didn’t want her. I kept trying to catch her, then let her slip. Any intent to have her near made her more invisible. Her electric breasts overfilled my brassieres. An interaction, our dialectic— She never removes her hat upon entering the door to my personality. Ma semblable, ma soeur!

For I have loved the blade with all my crippled with all my awkward soul loved it for the shine sheen for the ease and grace of doing what it was made to do for I have loved the stubborn womb its beloved intent have loved the hope and then learned to love the lack for I have loved the water the way it comes to me comes for me in all its liquid mystery for I have loved what the water loves its myriad vessels sky basin runnel channel and vein for all it claims and contains for I have loved its muscular flex its rise coil and fall so like Leviathan's mighty desperate heart for I have loved Leviathan for being only for being exactly what god hated and what he made for being water's own knife this wild unholy blade

If an orchidophage’s tastebud magnified resembles an orchid so my buds indubitably mimic pricking ice cream cones. Love, little by little it dawned on us the artisanal ice cream, especially the prizewinning caramel, would be out of our reach, like the previous Friday of a Sunday leaving the beach, in the meltdown. When you gasp at the soundfile of cymbals

Not a remarkable wind. So when the bistro’s patio umbrella blew suddenly free and pitched into the middle of the road, it put a stop to the afternoon. Something white and amazing was blocking the way. A waiter in a clean apron appeared, not quite certain, shielding his eyes, wary of our rumbling engines. He knelt in the hot road, making two figures in white, one leaning over the sprawled, broken shape of the other, creaturely, great-winged, and now so carefully gathered in.

As day did darken on the dewless grass, There, still, wi’ nwone a-come by me To stay a-while at hwome by me Within the house, all dumb by me, I zot me sad as the eventide did pass. An’ there a win’blast shook the rattlèn door, An’ seemed, as win’ did mwoan without, As if my Jeäne, alwone without, A-stannèn on the stwone without, Wer there a-come wi’ happiness oonce mwore. I went to door; an’ out vrom trees above My head, upon the blast by me, Sweet blossoms wer a-cast by me, As if my Love, a-past by me, Did fling em down—a token ov her love. “Sweet blossoms o’ the tree where I do murn,” I thought, “if you did blow vor her, Vor apples that should grow vor her, A-vallèn down below vor her, O then how happy I should zee you kern!” But no. Too soon I voun my charm a-broke. Noo comely soul in white like her— Noo soul a-steppèn light like her— An’ nwone o’ comely height like her Went by; but all my grief ageän awoke.

— after Lorca I want to always sleep beneath a bright red blanket of leaves. I want to never wear a coat of ice. I want to learn to walk without blinking. I want to outlive the turtle and the turtle’s father, the stone. I want a mouth full of permissions and a pink glistening bud. If the wildflower and ant hill can return after sleeping each season, I want to walk out of this house wearing nothing but wind. I want to greet you, I want to wait for the bus with you weighing less than a chill. I want to fight off the bolts of gray lighting the alcoves and winding paths of your hair. I want to fight off the damp nudgings of snow. I want to fight off the wind. I want to be the wind and I want to fight off the wind with its sagging banner of isolation, its swinging screen doors, its gilded boxes, and neatly folded pamphlets of noise. I want to fight off the dull straight lines of two by fours and endings, your disapprovals, your doubts and regulations, your carbon copies. If the locust can abandon its suit, I want a brand new name. I want the pepper’s fury and the salt’s tenderness. I want the virtue of the evening rain, but not its gossip. I want the moon’s intuition, but not its questions. I want the malice of nothing on earth. I want to enter every room in a strange electrified city and find you there. I want your lips around the bell of flesh at the bottom of my ear. I want to be the mirror, but not the nightstand. I do not want to be the light switch. I do not want to be the yellow photograph or book of poems. When I leave this body, Woman, I want to be pure flame. I want to be your song.

and on the waves in turmoil in the harbor gulls floated like pieces of paper set adrift, little boat-like birds twirling in the wind-tossed waves that drove into the strong arms of the seawall at the apex of the bay where a statue of Sappho stands, young woman with a lyre—not looking out to sea but glancing at the curve of the seawall and the birds, those lost notes before rain

The length of the wind runs from mid-May to murder. The length of the wind runs from January through joy. The wind runs as long as the right hand’s first finger points to the sun after thunder. The wind gallops prayerward like a horse held in the palm of a rock, no taller than a knee bent for the sake of singing. The wind weighs more than the fossilized horse and stretches from fingernail to praise. The length of the wind runs from mid-May to mercy, January through justice. Unto the broken, dwelling in a broken, promised land, the wind drops a hammer and some are warmed and some are chilled and some laugh and some die. Silently through the nuclear physicist, the wind wicks loud as paper-scraps trailing in the wind’s wake, igniting an empiricist, fragrant through tallow. The wind strikes the wind like rice in a paddy. The wind scatters petals like blossoms of napalm. The wind snaps the backs of malnourished conquistadors bowed down to gold. It is the wind who estimates poverty in moments by the method of moments, who assesses want in units of amass. It is the wind who shakes America by the ovaries, runs the length of revolution, all the calories in a dollar. The length of the wind runts from mid-March to hunger. The length of the wind grunts from Saturday through sorrow. The wind flutters nothing but orgasms and afterplay. The wind numbers seminarians more numinous than semen. The wind is a mote on the wind. The wind is the dust that measures time in footsteps. The wind is the word in the throat of the dust. The length of the wind runs from midwife to marvel. The wind ribbons out within mid-May and mourning and dust is the voice the wind whickers glory, the wind whickers grief.

Skywind, skillful disorder, Strong tumult walking over there, Wondrous man, rowdy-sounding, World hero, with neither foot nor wing. Yeast in cloud loaves, you were thrown out Of sky’s pantry, with not one foot, How swiftly you run, and so well This moment above the high hill. Tell me, north wind of the cwm, Your route, reliable hymn. Over the lengths of the world you fly, Tonight, hill weather, please stay high, Ah man, go over Upper Aeron Be lovely and cool, stay in clear tune. Don’t hang about or let that maniac, Litigious Little Bow, hold you back, He’s poisonous. Society And its goods are closed to me. Thief of nests, though you winnow leaves No one accuses you, nor impedes You, no band of men, nor magistrate’s hand, Nor blue blade, nor flood, nor rain. Indeed, no son of man can kill you, Fire won’t burn nor treason harm you. You shall not drown, as you’re aware, You’re never stuck, you’re angle-less air. No need of swift horse to get about, Nor bridge over water, nor any boat. No officer or force will hand you over To court for fingering treetop feathers. Sight cannot see you, wide-open den, But thousands hear you, nest of great rain. You are God’s grace across the world, The roar when breaking tops of oaks are hurled, You hang clouds’ notes in heavens’ score And dance athletically over moors Dry-humored, clever creature, Over clouds’ stepping-stones you travel far, Archer on fields of snow up high, Disperser of rubbish piles in loud cries. Storm that’s stirring up the sea Randy surfer where land meets sea. Bold poet, rhyming snowdrifts you are, Sower, scatterer of leaves you are, Clown of peaks, you get off scot-free, Hurler of mad-masted, foaming sea. I was lost once I felt desire For Morfudd of the golden hair. A girl has caused my disgrace, Run up to her father’s house, Knock on the door, make him open To my messenger before the dawn, Find her if there’s any way, Give song to the voice of my sigh. You come from unsullied stars, Tell my noble, generous her: For as long as I’m alive I will be her loyal slave. My face without her’s a mess If it’s true she’s not been faithless. Go up high, see the one who’s white, Go down below, sky’s favorite. Go to Morfudd Llwyd the fair, Come back safe, wealth of the air. Translated from the Welsh