Craig Arnold

After D.H.L. Your first thought when the light snaps on and the black wings clatter about the kitchen       is a bat the clear part of  your mind considers rabies       the other part does not consider       knows only to startle and cower away from the slap of  its wings       though it is soon clearly not a bat but a moth       and harmless still you are shy of it       it clings to the hood of the stove not black but brown       its orange eyes sparkle like televisions       its leg  joints are large enough to count how could you kill it       where would you hide the body a creature so solid must have room for a soul and if  this is so       why not in a creature half  its size       or half its size again       and so on down to the ants       clearly it must be saved caught in a shopping bag and rushed to the front door afraid to crush it       feeling the plastic rattle loosened into the night air       it batters the porch light throwing fitful shadows around the landing That was a really big moth is all you can say to the doorman who has watched your whole performance with a smile the half-compassion and half-horror we feel for the creatures we want not to hurt       and prefer not to touch

There is no I in teamwork but there is a two maker there is no I in together but there is a got three a get to her the I in relationship is the heart I slip on a lithe prison in all communication we count on a mimic (I am not uncomic) our listening skills are silent killings there is no we in marriage but a grim area there is an I in family also my fail

for Boyce They are threatening to leave us          the nimble-throated singers the little murderers with the quick pulses They  perch at the ends of   bare branches          their tails are ragged and pitiful          the long green feathers are fallen out          They  go on eating and eating last autumn's yellow melia berries They do not care that you approach          cold corpses rot in the grass          in the reeds The gray-shouldered crows hobble about          the wren barely a mouthful          cocks her pert tail and threatens to slaughter the white-footed cat in the bushes They do not understand that they are dying They are threatening to leave us          how quickly we forget the way they taught us how to play our voices opening soul to weightlessness          like the Spartan poet singing under the burden of  his old bones to the chorus girls with their honey songs and their holy voices how he wished he could scoot like a kingfisher lightly over the flower of  the waves          who boasted I know the tunes of every bird but I Alcman found my words and song in the tongue of the strident partridge Where will we find songs          when the sleek-headed mallards are gone          who chase each other around the pond the reluctant duck and the lovesick drake The way she turns her head to the side to scold him whack  whack  whack  whack  whack the way her boyfriend chases off  his rival and then swims back reeb  reeb with feeble reassurances          the way he sits on top of  her          the way she flaps her wings to keep above water          the way they look pleased with themselves          wagging their tails          smoothing each feather back in its right place They are threatening to leave          but you may still catch them saying goodbye          stealthed in the cedar and cypress at dawn          in the dark clarity between sleep and waking A run of  five notes on a black flute another          and another          buried deep in the mix how many melodies can the air hold And what they sing          so lovely and so meaningless may urge itself  upon you          with the ache of   something  just beyond the point of  being remembered the trace of a brave thought in the face of sadness

Teach me a fruit of  your country I asked and so you dipped into a shop and in your hand held me a thick yellow pinecone no knife between us you put it to your teeth sideways like a bird and bit and peeled away the fleshy scales or were they petals crisp white at the core peppered with black seeds sweet and light like a cold cloud like some exotic sherbet carried hand over hand from a mountaintop by a relay of runners straightway to the Inca’s high table we sat on metal chairs still pebbled with rain the seat of my pants damp we passed it back and forth no matter how carefully we could not help spilling the juice making our cheeks sticky our fingers getting sticky our fingers no not even once touching

You have towered here leaning half over the wall all my awareness years before I knew what silkworm was or China I felt your berries pulp under my feet tracked your purple all over grandmother’s carpet a sapling planted by some sea captain to make shade for a future This winter you lost one of  your long low branches to a backed-up car and the old woman who has known you all her life wept at the split wood Your bark is wrinkled more deeply than any face you live so slowly do our voices sound to you like the fluttering of  paper moth wings do we seem rootless holding fast to the anchor of  the saddest things

To wake when all is possible before the agitations of the day have gripped you To come to the kitchen and peel a little basketball for breakfast To tear the husk like cotton padding        a cloud of oil misting out of its pinprick pores clean and sharp as pepper To ease each pale pink section out of its case so carefully       without breaking a single pearly cell To slide each piece into a cold blue china bowl the juice pooling       until the whole fruit is divided from its skin and only then to eat so sweet a discipline precisely pointless       a devout involvement of the hands and senses a pause     a little emptiness each year harder to live within each year harder to live without

For Rebecca You are the kind of  person who buys exotic fruits leaves them out on the counter until they rot You always mean to eat them       sometimes you rearrange them rousing over the bowl a cloud of tiny flies & How do they balance       the parrot who chews a walnut sideways       holding it up in his right foot the owl perched on a just-lit lamppost scratching behind its ear       like a big dog & Your pencil eraser wears down long before the point for every word you write       you rub out two & Where the slice of  toast rested       the plate is still warm a film of fog       little points of dew & Love is like velocity       we feel the speeding up and the slowing down       otherwise not at all the more steady       the more it feels like going nowhere my love I want to go nowhere with you & I cannot bring myself  to toss the cup of cold coffee you set down by the door on your way to the taxi all day I have sipped it       each time forgetting your two tablets of fake sugar       too sweet & Running down the street dodging between raindrops plump as cherries & The ground was feathered with wild strawberries I picked seven       as many as I could bear I ate two       I saved the rest for you       here hold out your hand       take them       taste how sweet & Please hold me the forgotten way the wall pleads spray-paint face and voice of a damned poet the darling damned poets       save them from themselves maybe it is us they need saving from

For Alicia The bird who creaks like a rusty playground swing the bird who sharpens the knife         the bird who blows on the mouths of milk bottles         the bird who bawls like a cat like a cartoon baby         the bird who rubs the wineglass the bird who curlicues         the bird who quacks like a duck but is not a duck         the bird who pinks on a jeweller's hammer They hide behind the sunlight scattered throughout the canopy At the thud of your feet they fall thoughtful and quiet coming to life again only when you have passed Perhaps they are not multiple         but one a many-mooded trickster         whose voice is rich and infinitely various         whose feathers liquify the rainbow         rippling scarlet emerald indigo         whose streaming tail is rare as a comet's         a single glimpse of which is all that you could wish for         the one thing missing         to make your eyes at last feel full to meet this wild need of yours         for wonder

The chain uncouples, and his jacket hangs on the peg over hers, and he's inside. She stalls in the kitchen, putting the kettle on, buys herself a minute looking for two matching cups for the lime-flower tea, not really lime but linden, heart-shaped leaves and sticky flowers that smell of antifreeze. She talks a wall around her, twists the string tighter around the tea bag in her spoon. But every conversation has to break somewhere, and at the far end of the sofa he sits, warming his hands around the cup he hasn't tasted yet, and listens on with such an exasperating show of patience it's almost a relief to hear him ask it: If you're not using your body right now maybe you'd let me borrow it for a while?

Of many reasons I love you here is one the way you write me from the gate at the airport so I can tell you everything will be alright so you can tell me there is a bird trapped in the terminal      all the people ignoring it       because they do not know what to do with it       except to leave it alone until it scares itself to death it makes you terribly terribly sad You wish you could take the bird outside and set it free or       (failing that) call a bird-understander to come help the bird All you can do is notice the bird and feel for the bird       and write to tell me how language feels impossibly useless but you are wrong You are a bird-understander better than I could ever be who make so many noises and call them song These are your own words your way of noticing and saying plainly of not turning away from hurt you have offered them to me       I am only giving them back if only I could show you how very useless they are not