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My throat is full of sparklers making me a lighthouse for a loveship       that can fly Our mother monarchy sweet land paternity I’ll eat their offspring’s money       and let you have a bite In wilder colors       I can love the copy of  you which is great            when we have breasts He will breathe through contractions and she will heal the faceless and use her eyes       to steel his legs You must see that I’m eating for two sexes Minimalism means       nothing making more of  what isn’t there a green preconception divining a baby gender for which I qualified with braids ablaze       and stuck to my back We are going to win       then make extra babies yes we make enough to make a country Text unto the winged baby       the tiny pill of  mystery that makes me want to tickle the world until it starts barfing clouds Make it free       is not the advice we paid for but a long song about the flavor of nowhere and how we never fill it and how I shave my buzzardy wings       to offend the sublime While I’m quick to swallow       the heaviest business and quicker yet to modify that trash you have a poultice       for sudden holes you have a knife in ten minutes you will marry a parent       and make it do whatever you tell it The raptor you were       does an end-run around sorrow but I’m right here sweetness out of  the glass closet                voilà voilà        so what do you make of my baby Tonight we bomb Tonight we blitz Tonight we barrage Tonight we make the greater migration Tonight our fabulous flock shits napalm on the criminal dads For I am a figure       first of girls in orbit the best reason I have to eat your bed I am spangled breasts       I am shaved like any birdboy       only huger than babies or ladybugs one of each is precious a million a menace My inside is a live mine and I’m after the light that sustains the skin of  women scooping the spectacle where everyone freaks everyone They will say how do you do Mister Ms. Thunderbride and I will say I do it distorted and you       will marry a million of  you in your twisted gown of  flames

The house collapsed and I was crushed under the rubble, pulverized, but here I am, walking around as if I were alive — the swain, with an oxeye daisy in my buttonhole, the bitter voluptuary, never satisfied, the three-legged dog, the giant under the tiny parasol at the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, the only Abyssinian in the choir of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. (Somebody must have done a self-portrait of me.) Just amazing. I think I could wrap my arms all the way around the 24,901-miles-circumferenced Earth.

Crossed fingers gird the planet, though small optimism obtains. Will I read The Serious Doll in wraps, with its roller slur? A book where everybody, reader and writer included, dies. The kind of thing people said in the 1970s: “Hello, I’m back being me again.” My first and last names and the first and last names of both my parents have the same number of letters. The wasp waist, the tennis dress, the shirtwaist, the dirndl (Mainbocher). A distant yet achingly distinct whinny:et voila! the walking buckboard. Dustin Hoffman’s bookcase hanging by one hinge in air of Eleventh Street, dawn 1969. Telephone solicitation for a ballet school in need of “serious floors.” The thought of someone flat on his back on the carpet, tossing and giggling. If it hurts don’t do it. (There are several unless es to this caution.) For the second time in two millennia slept through the meteor shower, results of last night’s talk.

The mockingbird says, hallelujah, coreopsis, I make the day bright, I wake the night-blooming jasmine. I am the duodecimo of desperate love, the hocus pocus passion flower of delirious retribution. You never saw such a bird, such a triage of blood and feathers, tongue and bone. O the world is a sad address, bitterness melting the tongues of babies, breasts full of accidental milk, but I can teach the flowers to grow, take their tight buds, unfurl them like flags in the morning heat, fat banners of scent, flat platters of riot on the emerald scene. I am the green god of pine trees, conducting the music of rustling needles through a harp of wind. I am the heart of men, the wild bird that drives their sex, forges their engines, jimmies their shattered locks in the dark flare where midnight slinks. I am the careless minx in the skirts of women, the bright moon caressing their hair, the sharp words pouring from their beautiful mouths in board rooms, on bar stools, in big city laundrettes. I am Lester Young’s sidewinding sax, sending that Pony Express message out west in the Marconi tube hidden in every torso tied tight in the corset of do and don’t, high and low, yes and no. I am the radio, first god of the twentieth century, broadcasting the news, the blues, the death counts, the mothers wailing when everyone’s gone home. I am sweeping through the Eustachian tubes of the great plains, transmitting through every ear of corn, shimmying down the spine of every Bible-thumping banker and bureaucrat, relaying the anointed word of the shimmering world. Every dirty foot that walks the broken streets moves on my wings. I speak from the golden screens. Hear the roar of my discord murdering the trees, screaming its furious rag, the fuselage of my revival-tent brag. Open your windows, slip on your castanets. I am the flamenco in the heel of desire. I am the dancer. I am the choir. Hear my wild throat crowd the exploding sky. O I can make a noise.

I have no Brother,—they who meet me now Offer a hand with their own wills defiled, And, while they wear a smooth unwrinkled brow, Know not that Truth can never be beguiled; Go wash the hand that still betrays thy guilt; Before the spirit’s gaze what stain can hide? Abel’s red blood upon the earth is spilt, And by thy tongue it cannot be denied; I hear not with my ear,—the heart doth tell Its secret deeds to me untold before; Go, all its hidden plunder quickly sell, Then shalt thou cleanse thee from thy brother’s gore, Then will I take thy gift; that bloody stain Shall not be seen upon thy hand again.

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills! In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same; The village street its haunted mansion lacks, And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name, And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks— Are ye too changed, ye hills? See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays! Here came I often, often, in old days— Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then. Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm, Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames? The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs, The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames?— This winter-eve is warm, Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, The tender purple spray on copse and briers! And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, She needs not June for beauty's heightening, Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!— Only, methinks, some loss of habit's power Befalls me wandering through this upland dim. Once pass'd I blindfold here, at any hour; Now seldom come I, since I came with him. That single elm-tree bright Against the west—I miss it! is it goner? We prized it dearly; while it stood, we said, Our friend, the Gipsy-Scholar, was not dead; While the tree lived, he in these fields lived on. Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here, But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick; And with the country-folk acquaintance made By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick. Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay'd. Ah me! this many a year My pipe is lost, my shepherd's holiday! Needs must I lose them, needs with heavy heart Into the world and wave of men depart; But Thyrsis of his own will went away. It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest. He loved each simple joy the country yields, He loved his mates; but yet he could not keep, For that a shadow lour'd on the fields, Here with the shepherds and the silly sheep. Some life of men unblest He knew, which made him droop, and fill'd his head. He went; his piping took a troubled sound Of storms that rage outside our happy ground; He could not wait their passing, he is dead. So, some tempestuous morn in early June, When the year's primal burst of bloom is o'er, Before the roses and the longest day— When garden-walks and all the grassy floor With blossoms red and white of fallen May And chestnut-flowers are strewn— So have I heard the cuckoo's parting cry, From the wet field, through the vext garden-trees, Come with the volleying rain and tossing breeze: The bloom is gone, and with the bloom go I! Too quick despairer, wherefore wilt thou go? Soon will the high Midsummer pomps come on, Soon will the musk carnations break and swell, Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon, Sweet-William with his homely cottage-smell, And stocks in fragrant blow; Roses that down the alleys shine afar, And open, jasmine-muffled lattices, And groups under the dreaming garden-trees, And the full moon, and the white evening-star. He hearkens not! light comer, he is flown! What matters it? next year he will return, And we shall have him in the sweet spring-days, With whitening hedges, and uncrumpling fern, And blue-bells trembling by the forest-ways, And scent of hay new-mown. But Thyrsis never more we swains shall see; See him come back, and cut a smoother reed, And blow a strain the world at last shall heed— For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer'd thee! Alack, for Corydon no rival now!— But when Sicilian shepherds lost a mate, Some good survivor with his flute would go, Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate; And cross the unpermitted ferry's flow, And relax Pluto's brow, And make leap up with joy the beauteous head Of Proserpine, among whose crowned hair Are flowers first open'd on Sicilian air, And flute his friend, like Orpheus, from the dead. O easy access to the hearer's grace When Dorian shepherds sang to Proserpine! For she herself had trod Sicilian fields, She knew the Dorian water's gush divine, She knew each lily white which Enna yields Each rose with blushing face; She loved the Dorian pipe, the Dorian strain. But ah, of our poor Thames she never heard! Her foot the Cumner cowslips never stirr'd; And we should tease her with our plaint in vain! Well! wind-dispersed and vain the words will be, Yet, Thyrsis, let me give my grief its hour In the old haunt, and find our tree-topp'd hill! Who, if not I, for questing here hath power? I know the wood which hides the daffodil, I know the Fyfield tree, I know what white, what purple fritillaries The grassy harvest of the river-fields, Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields, And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries; I know these slopes; who knows them if not I?— But many a tingle on the loved hillside, With thorns once studded, old, white-blossom'd trees, Where thick the cowslips grew, and far descried High tower'd the spikes of purple orchises, Hath since our day put by The coronals of that forgotten time; Down each green bank hath gone the ploughboy's team, And only in the hidden brookside gleam Primroses, orphans of the flowery prime. Where is the girl, who by the boatman's door, Above the locks, above the boating throng, Unmoor'd our skiff when through the Wytham flats, Red loosestrife and blond meadow-sweet among And darting swallows and light water-gnats, We track'd the shy Thames shore? Where are the mowers, who, as the tiny swell Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass, Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass?— They all are gone, and thou art gone as well! Yes, thou art gone! and round me too the night In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. I see her veil draw soft across the day, I feel her slowly chilling breath invade The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey; I feel her finger light Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train; — The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, The heart less bounding at emotion new, And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. And long the way appears, which seem'd so short To the less practised eye of sanguine youth; And high the mountain-tops, in cloudy air, The mountain-tops where is the throne of Truth, Tops in life's morning-sun so bright and bare! Unbreachable the fort Of the long-batter'd world uplifts its wall; And strange and vain the earthly turmoil grows, And near and real the charm of thy repose, And night as welcome as a friend would fall. But hush! the upland hath a sudden loss Of quiet!—Look, adown the dusk hill-side, A troop of Oxford hunters going home, As in old days, jovial and talking, ride! From hunting with the Berkshire hounds they come. Quick! let me fly, and cross Into yon farther field!—'Tis done; and see, Back'd by the sunset, which doth glorify The orange and pale violet evening-sky, Bare on its lonely ridge, the Tree! the Tree! I take the omen! Eve lets down her veil, The white fog creeps from bush to bush about, The west unflushes, the high stars grow bright, And in the scatter'd farms the lights come out. I cannot reach the signal-tree to-night, Yet, happy omen, hail! Hear it from thy broad lucent Arno-vale (For there thine earth forgetting eyelids keep The morningless and unawakening sleep Under the flowery oleanders pale), Hear it, O Thyrsis, still our tree is there!— Ah, vain! These English fields, this upland dim, These brambles pale with mist engarlanded, That lone, sky-pointing tree, are not for him; To a boon southern country he is fled, And now in happier air, Wandering with the great Mother's train divine (And purer or more subtle soul than thee, I trow, the mighty Mother doth not see) Within a folding of the Apennine, Thou hearest the immortal chants of old!— Putting his sickle to the perilous grain In the hot cornfield of the Phrygian king, For thee the Lityerses-song again Young Daphnis with his silver voice doth sing; Sings his Sicilian fold, His sheep, his hapless love, his blinded eyes— And how a call celestial round him rang, And heavenward from the fountain-brink he sprang, And all the marvel of the golden skies. There thou art gone, and me thou leavest here Sole in these fields! yet will I not despair. Despair I will not, while I yet descry 'Neath the mild canopy of English air That lonely tree against the western sky. Still, still these slopes, 'tis clear, Our Gipsy-Scholar haunts, outliving thee! Fields where soft sheep from cages pull the hay, Woods with anemonies in flower till May, Know him a wanderer still; then why not me? A fugitive and gracious light he seeks, Shy to illumine; and I seek it too. This does not come with houses or with gold, With place, with honour, and a flattering crew; 'Tis not in the world's market bought and sold— But the smooth-slipping weeks Drop by, and leave its seeker still untired; Out of the heed of mortals he is gone, He wends unfollow'd, he must house alone; Yet on he fares, by his own heart inspired. Thou too, O Thyrsis, on like quest wast bound; Thou wanderedst with me for a little hour! Men gave thee nothing; but this happy quest, If men esteem'd thee feeble, gave thee power, If men procured thee trouble, gave thee rest. And this rude Cumner ground, Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields, Here cams't thou in thy jocund youthful time, Here was thine height of strength, thy golden prime! And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields. What though the music of thy rustic flute Kept not for long its happy, country tone; Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note Of men contention-tost, of men who groan, Which task'd thy pipe too sore, and tired thy throat— It fail'd, and thou wage mute! Yet hadst thou always visions of our light, And long with men of care thou couldst not stay, And soon thy foot resumed its wandering way, Left human haunt, and on alone till night. Too rare, too rare, grow now my visits here! 'Mid city-noise, not, as with thee of yore, Thyrsis! in reach of sheep-bells is my home. —Then through the great town's harsh, heart-wearying roar, Let in thy voice a whisper often come, To chase fatigue and fear: Why faintest thou! I wander'd till I died. Roam on! The light we sought is shining still. Dost thou ask proof? Our tree yet crowns the hill, Our Scholar travels yet the loved hill-side.

All morning my daughter pleading, outside outside. By noon I kneel to button her coat, tie the scarf to keep her hood in place. This is her first snow so she strains against the ritual, spooked silent then whining, restless under each buffeting layer, uncertain how to settle into this leashing. I manage at last to tunnel her hands into mittens and she barks and won’t stop barking, her hands suddenly paws. She is reduced to another being, barking, barking all day in these restraints. For days after, she howls into her hands, the only way she tells me she wants out.

Mamua, when our laughter ends, And hearts and bodies, brown as white, Are dust about the doors of friends, Or scent ablowing down the night, Then, oh! then, the wise agree, Comes our immortality. Mamua, there waits a land Hard for us to understand. Out of time, beyond the sun, All are one in Paradise, You and Pupure are one, And Taü, and the ungainly wise. There the Eternals are, and there The Good, the Lovely, and the True, And Types, whose earthly copies were The foolish broken things we knew; There is the Face, whose ghosts we are; The real, the never-setting Star; And the Flower, of which we love Faint and fading shadows here; Never a tear, but only Grief; Dance, but not the limbs that move; Songs in Song shall disappear; Instead of lovers, Love shall be; For hearts, Immutability; And there, on the Ideal Reef, Thunders the Everlasting Sea! And my laughter, and my pain, Shall home to the Eternal Brain. And all lovely things, they say, Meet in Loveliness again; Miri’s laugh, Teïpo’s feet, And the hands of Matua, Stars and sunlight there shall meet Coral’s hues and rainbows there, And Teüra’s braided hair; And with the starred tiare’s white, And white birds in the dark ravine, And flamboyants ablaze at night, And jewels, and evening’s after-green, And dawns of pearl and gold and red, Mamua, your lovelier head! And there’ll no more be one who dreams Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff, Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems, All time-entangled human love. And you’ll no longer swing and sway Divinely down the scented shade, Where feet to Ambulation fade, And moons are lost in endless Day. How shall we wind these wreaths of ours, Where there are neither heads nor flowers? Oh, Heaven’s Heaven!—but we’ll be missing The palms, and sunlight, and the south; And there’s an end, I think, of kissing, When our mouths are one with Mouth.... Taü here, Mamua, Crown the hair, and come away! Hear the calling of the moon, And the whispering scents that stray About the idle warm lagoon. Hasten, hand in human hand, Down the dark, the flowered way, Along the whiteness of the sand, And in the water’s soft caress, Wash the mind of foolishness, Mamua, until the day. Spend the glittering moonlight there Pursuing down the soundless deep Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair, Or floating lazy, half-asleep. Dive and double and follow after, Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call, With lips that fade, and human laughter And faces individual, Well this side of Paradise! .... There’s little comfort in the wise.

Not gigan-tic. Not roman-tic. Not artis-tic. Not majes-tic. Not magne-tic. Nor aesthe-tic. Ticks are strictly parasi-tic.

At the hour the streetlights come on, buildings turn abstract. The Hudson, for a moment, formal. We drink bourbon on the terrace and you speak in the evening voice, weighted deep in the throat. They plan to harvest oysters, you tell me, from the harbor by Jersey City, how the waters will be clean again in twenty years. I imagine nets burdened with rough shells, the meat dun and sexual. Below, the river and the high rock where boys each year jump from bravado or desperation. The day flares, turns into itself. And innocently, sideways, the way we always fall into grace or knowledge, we watched the police drag the river for a suicide, the third this year. The terrible hook, the boy’s frail whiteness. His face was blank and new as your face in the morning before the day has worked its pattern of lines and tensions. A hook like an iron question and this coming out of the waters, a flawed pearl— a memory that wasn’t ours to claim. Perhaps, in a bedroom by lamplight, a woman waits for this boy. She may riffle drawers gathering photographs, string, keys to abandoned rooms. Even now she may be leaving, closing the door for some silence. I need to move next to you. Water sluiced from the boy’s hair. I need to watch you light your cigarette, the flickering of your face in matchlight, as if underwater, drifting away. I take your cigarette and drag from it, touch your hand. Remember that winter of your long fever, the winter we understood how fragile any being together was. The wall sweated behind the headboard and you said you felt the rim where dreams crouch and every room of the past. It must begin in luxury— do you think—a break and fall into the glamour attending each kind of surrender. Water must flood the mind, as in certain diseases, the walls between the cells of memory dissolve, blur into a single stream of voices and faces. I don’t know any more about this river or if it can be cleaned of its tender and broken histories— a tide of voices. And this is how the dead rise to us, transformed: wet and singing, the tide of voices pearling in our hands.