Two Poems
The last time I wake in the foreclosed house
a deer arrives faithfully in the yard.
Why is it all connected this way, suddenly
remembering your mustard coat
running through the park, a sun I followed.
I am sick and constantly in awe
of how easily the day spoils.
I am sick
and pull my hand through your hair
wishing to be out of my head.
Is childhood worth
remembering, I ask.
You are the deer
I know, punishing to touch.
This is the afternoon the women dance on the grassy hill, unclothed
and untethered as the wolves of Belarus, before the word
for water appears like a seed of the aftermath, before the lesson
of numbers darkens. One woman stretches her shining torso
into the weather, extends the reach of her palm,
safe for a second from the dead
of winter revealing its prophecy in the almond tree. Another
falls backward into matte blue sky.
You can’t see her face, can’t distinguish
pain from healing. You have dragged your chair up here
to learn desire in the movement of muscles bulbous beneath skin,
each woman her own unholy architecture, hair blooming
wild behind her. You have always been the woman in the flooding
room, refusing to move out of the way.
