Letters to a Stranger

I In April we will pierce his body. It is March. Snow is dust over the branches. A pony hunches in the orchard. I stand at the frozen mouth of the river, Thinking of you. In the house where you live Frost glitters on the windows Like uncounted pieces of silver. Already they are preparing the wine and the bread. II The field is banked with purple asters And a spill of mustard flowers. The earth has taken on terrible proportions. Out in an unused meadow The wildflowers have already covered The delicate bones of an Indian. Bees are flying across the meadow To a hive under the rafters of the barn. Someone is leading a horse with crippled bones Into the spikes of clover. III Alexander died this morning, Leaving his worldly possessions To the strongest. I watched an empire fade across his lips. They propped him in the sun a while, And then three women came to scour his body Like a continent. I am afraid of what the world will do. Only this afternoon I heard two worms conversing In the shadow of his breastbone. I slipped out of the palace And entered a vein of gillyflowers On the edge of potter’s field. I will not be missed. No one even noticed. IV I have been thinking of the son I would like to have. The leaves have all gone yellow Overnight, wrinkling like hands In the updraught. I drove my car by the creek Because I had nowhere else to go. The milkweed’s delicate closet had been fractured, Filling the air with rumors. Despite all I could do, the sumac Had taken on the color of a mouth. Tonight, I perceive the young girls In my mother’s blood Letting their seed pass by unnoticed, A red nativity. V Last night they dragged the canal For an old man’s body. Now he is singing for a hook Just below water level. A branch of ice is splitting open Across each window, And snow is dismantling the weeds Like the breakable furniture of a boudoir. I have been rereading your letters. It is too cold for a virgin birth to occur Even in the frosty suburbs Of a wildflower. VI I have learned to camouflage myself in church, Masking my body With the body of a saint. Last night frost glazed the face of Mary Magdalene, And snow rode up to the altar windows. Before morning, the sparrows came down To the body of Saint Francis. Now he is upholstered in oak leaves Like a living room chair. This morning we are preparing a crucifixion. I am thinking of you now. With the velvet at my knees And the silverware shining on the altar And the stained glass moving out of focus And the cross veiled in black, I am present for the news of an enormous death. I take the bread on my tongue Like one of Christ’s fingers, And the wine rides through my breast Like a dark hearse. All the while I am thinking of you. An avalanche of white carnations Is drifting across your voice As it drifts across the voices of confession. But the snow keeps whispering of you over and over.