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When the junkies my father sold crack to got too close to me, he told them to back up six dicks’ lengths. This is the man who when I was seven caught me under the bed crying and said: Save those tears. You’ll need them later. The man who told me he smoked crack because he liked it, the man sitting on his couch now watching the History Channel, scratching the nub beneath his knee where his leg used to be, gumming plums, his false teeth soaking in vinegar on the table. I’m sitting across the room trying to conjure each version he’s shown of himself, trying to lie in water warm enough to soak away the switch he hit me with. To help me summon love for the man who just asked me if he can borrow 200 dollars, the man who once told me:Wish in one hand, then shit in the other, and see which one fills up the quickest.

It is the twilight blue Chevrolet, four doors with no power but the engine, whitewall tires, no padding on the dashboard, the car I drive on dates, park on dark lanes to ask for a kiss, now my hand goes along the fender, wiping every spot, the suds in the bucket, my father standing at the gate, poor and proud, tall and stout, a wise man, a man troubled by a son gone missing in the head, drag racing his only car at night, traveling with hoodlums to leave the books for street life, naming mentors the men who pack guns and knives, a son gone missing from all the biblical truth, ten talents, prophecies, burning bushes, dirty cars washed on Saturday morning. He tells me not to miss a spot, to open the hood when I'm done so he can check the oil, the vital thing like blood, blood of kinship, blood spilled in the streets of Baltimore, blood oozing from the soul of a son walking prodigal paths leading to gutters. Years later I tell him the stories of what his brother-in-law did to me, and he wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, wraps it in a white handkerchief for church, walks up the stairs with the aluminum crutch to scream at the feet of black Jesus and in these brittle years of his old age we grow deeper, talk way after midnight, peeping over the rail of his hospital bed as we wash the twilight blue Chevrolet.

Isn't it always the heart that wants to wash the elephant, begging the body to do it with soap and water, a ladder, hands, in tree-shade big enough for the vast savannahs of your sadness, the strangler fig of your guilt, the cratered full moon's light fueling the windy spooling memory of elephant? What if Father Quinn had said, "Of course you'll recognize your parents in heaven," instead of "Being one with God will make your mother and father pointless." That was back when I was young enough to love them absolutely though still fear for their place in heaven, imagining their souls like sponges full of something resembling street water after rain. Still my mother sent me every Saturday to confess, to wring the sins out of my small baffled soul, and I made up lies about lying, disobeying, chewing gum in church, to offer them as carefully as I handed over the knotted handkercheif of coins to the grocer when my mother sent me for a loaf of Wonder, Land O'Lakes, and two Camels. If guilt is the damage of childhood, then eros is the fall of adolescence. Of the fall begins there, and never ends, desire after desire parading through a lifetime like the Ringling Brothers elephants made to walk through the Queens-Midtown Tuunnel and down 34th Street to the Garden. So much of our desire like their bulky, shadowy walking after midnight, exiled from the wild and destined for a circus with its tawdry gaudiness, its unspoken pathos. It takes more than half a century to figure out who they were, the few real loves-of-your-life and how much of the rest— the mad breaking-heart stickiness—falls away, slowly, unnoticed, the way you lose your taste for things like Popsicles unthinkingly. And though dailiness may have no place for the ones that have etched themselves in the laugh lines and frown lines on the face that's harder and harder to claim as your own, often one love-of-your-life will appear in a dream, arriving with the weight and certitude of an elephant, and it's always the heart that wants to go out and wash the huge mysteriousness of what they meant, those memories that have only memories to feed them, and only you to keep them clean.

with a mournful but driving feel, in Bm, 2/2 time in the dark, in the bitter wind listen to a dream grandmothers stand shoulder to shoulder, on the rim of a hill bend as one, and grasp one thing together ask them, in the dream world, why do they cry? they will show you in reply their shawls of many colours, spread these wings sweep you in, teach you how once a year, in the dark of the year we wash the whole world in a day—for one day, we cry until they're home, until they all are home from one dawn to the next mourning for the broken wailing for regrets love lost, wrong words, wrong actions unbalanced moments and all the cracks between heart and heart, parent and child lover and beloved friend, nation and nation creature, and creature of another kind for what we choose and what we neglect to choose for what we wish we'd known for each hand unclasped tongue unbridled one whisper falling short of heard until they're home, until they are all home the bread far from   the hunger                                         the apology the confusion            the broken road these things we gather in this blanket bone and sand and sage we wash the world, between us hold this blanket, fill it with our tears and when we have cried from one dawn to the next then we will rise, and we will dance until they're home, until they all are home lay your hands upon the truth of beauty's loss heavy, soft as moss, this blanket full of tears and dust and dying becomes ocean cradle, healing, dark the promise, washed clean by our sorrow today crying out, as we're birthing tomorrow not so much redemption as the law of moon and season calls for justice one day, the lawmakers must exit their echoing halls, fall in with the grandmothers dancing carry it                 cry it clean until they're home, until they are all home until light through their bodies translates to rainbows hung over the land until light through their bodies translates to rainbows strung over this land until light through our bodies translates to rainbows shining over our land until we're home, until we all are home

Rich, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors— Resting under my cedar tree at evening. The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe; I dowered them when married. I gave the boys money to start in business. They were strong children, promising as apples Before the bitten places show. But John fled the country in disgrace. Jenny died in child-birth— I sat under my cedar tree. Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorced— I sat under my cedar tree. Paul was invalided from over-study, Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man— I sat under my cedar tree. All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life— I sat under my cedar tree. My mate, the mother of them, was taken— I sat under my cedar tree Till ninety years were tolled. O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep!

Possessed of this city, we are born Into kinship with its people. Eyes that looked upon Cool magnificence of space, The calm of marble, And green converging on green In long distances, Bear their wonder to refute Meaningless dimensions, The Old-World facades. The city is ours irrevocably As pain sprouts at the edge of joy, As grief grows large with our years. New seeds push hard to topsoil; Logic is a grafted flower From roots in a changeless bed. Skeleton steel may shadow the path, Broken stone snag the foot, But we shall walk again Side by side with others on the street, Each certain of his way home.

After explanations and regulations, he Walked warily in. Black hair covered his chin, subscribing to Villainous ideal. “This can not be real,” he thought, “this is a Classical mistake; This is a cake baked with embarrassing icing; Somebody’s got Likely as not, a big fat tongue in cheek! What have I to do With a prim and proper-blooded lady?” Christ in deed has risen When a Junkie in prison visits with a Wasp woman. “Hold your stupid face, man, Learn a little grace, man; drop a notch the sacred shield. She might have good reason, Like: ‘I was in prison and ye visited me not,’ or—some such. So sweep clear Anachronistic fear, fight the fog, And use no hot words.” After the seating And the greeting, they fished for a denominator, Common or uncommon; And could only summon up the fact that both were human. “Be at ease, man! Try to please, man!—the lady is as lost as you: ‘You got children, Ma’am?’” he said aloud. The thrust broke the dam, and their lines wiggled in the water. She offered no pills To cure his many ills, no compact sermons, but small And funny talk: “My baby began to walk... simply cannot keep his room clean...” Her chatter sparked no resurrection and truly No shackles were shaken But after she had taken her leave, he walked softly, And for hours used no hot words.

Where are you wandering to, little fools Come, big sister will teach you how to write verse Itchy little wasps sucking rotting flowers Horny baby lambkins butting gaps in the fence

It was the fruit I wanted, not the nest. The nest was hanging like the richest fruit against the sun. I took the nest and with it came the heart, and in my hand the kingdom and the queen, frail surfaces, rested for a moment. Then the drones awoke and did their painful business. I let the city drop upon the stones. It split to its deep palaces and combs. It bled the insect gold, the pupa queens like tiny eyes wriggled from their sockets, and somewhere the monarch cowered in a veil of wings in passages through which at evening the labourers had homed, burdened with silence and the garden scents. The secret heart was broken suddenly. I, to whom the knowledge had been given, who was not after knowledge but a fruit, remember how a knot of pains swelled my hand to a round nest; blood throbbed in the hurt veins as if an unseen swarm mined there. The nest oozed bitter honey. I swaddled my fat hand in cotton. After a week pain gave it back to me scarred and weakened like a shrivelled skin. A second fruit is growing on the tree. Identical—the droning in the leaves. It ripens. I have another hand.

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he’s to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may forever tarry.