Elegy

I.
when summer lay smoldering in beds of grass
and the earth burned our naked feet

days swallowed each other
the spur of action saved always for
later

(this was the lie in the yard
sweating green into the heavy air

deepfry tan sun
glinting red off your retinas

pressure-cooked skin on
muskoka wood)


II.
the snails we collected by the dusty curb
the flies that hit our burnt faces
the cat that laced its way through fences

eyes iced shut
lying with the rest of the past

what little grace remains
in the languid movement
of limp leaves and hot birds
now tempered by loss

Toothpick Woman

I and you go quietly around our crossing paths,
never touching, Toothpick Woman. I could pick
my teeth with your shoulder. Sometimes I long
to dig my teeth in your shoulder. Midnight, and I’m
awake, eating my words, swallowing my words,
to fortify myself against your empty limbs,
Matchstick Woman. You are the stuff of my insomnia.
You are the stuff of mayonnaise dreams. You are
my malaise, I cannot haunt you effectively.

The Baby

Judging by the light in his eyes he is
between the lines, a veritable lampshade. Why?
he asks, his baby teeth bright.

I do not know. I do not tell him so.
How am I to answer glowing eyes, a baby
mind? I am afraid to be revealed. He

frightens me. I jiggle myself for batteries,
for backup power. I want a torch in hand in
case of sturdy self-defense. I’ve never seen

a baby like this man, kept infantile for centuries,
millennia, by megawatts of desperation
that shine from every corner of the earth, adding

one to another until together their blindness is
blinding. I cannot hear through the light. All I feel
is his baby body pressed against me.