i wept in a dream

to think

that

at one sparking moment

in the stream

of the past

i put my mouth

against your shadow

and

that at

one white point

in the night sky of the past

my face rested

against

a wind

that had curved itself

against you.

lover, i hold out my hands

and nothing comes into them.

lover, i hold out my hands and

nothing

comes into them.

i wept in a dream

beauty is pressure.

this is why, said the greeks,

we drew

figures

from marble.

this is why, said the singers,

we drew

notes

from flesh.

fashioning

petals

from parts;

the attempt

to compress

petals

into flesh.

this is why, like water from a well,

i drew your name

from memory.

i wept in a dream

"i want to put my mouth

to the comet's trail

and dye my hands

in fire," she said,

and i cannot do so without you.

and i cannot do so without you.

her insistence on my presence

is why i put my hands in hers,

though her skin chills

and her teeth glitter

with something

that looks like blood.

there are comets

in the early morning

for her to mouthe

and she brings me with her

and she plunges me into fire.

everywhere my skin touches, i feel you.

every place my blood beats, you are there.

at least you are there.

i wept in a dream

i wept in a dream, beloved.

i wept that you were there
and i wept that you were not there.

if you were there, i wept,
then,
that i was not there, or that
i was, o my lover, with

your eyes and mouth like
stars.

i wept in a dream

petrarch chased laura over the woods-road, feet trapping on roots grown into the way, sunlight filtered to green and umber above and the road itself below of old and swollen flagstone, the moss gathering between stone-breaks flowering in flakes of white.  the air in his mouth tasted sweeter than other air.  he heard her laugh as he pushed back curtains of hanging lichens and found himself at the abbey.  she was leaning against the stones of the ruined gate, in red, smiling, her long black hair in a thick knot at the nape of her neck and as he walked up to her she disappeared naturally.

but he knew what to do: dropped to his knees because it had happened this way countless times and licked the pavement where she had stood.  swallowed.  and the sounds of her loveliness came in strands from his throat.  he gathered them and bound them around his wrists.  and he couched back on his heels and imagined satyrs and clerics come to him and mark the moment, bless his devotion as a beautiful process...

but in his mind there was a tree being smothered by its own shadow.  and when he woke with moonlight stretched across his face, he stood and looked out into the hot night and knew

that with or without her he still was dreaming

and the moonlight stretched like a hand over venice.

i wept in a dream

but i don't know what i saw.
i lay ont the ground with geryon
watching the wickedest arrow
dive into
st. sebastian, the patron saint
of love

and we felt for resonance we felt for it together

but instead
i reached inside
and pulled

and pulled
and pulled and

(as if one barb
could be turned
into a full bloom)

i saw blood
eventually.

i wept in a dream

a day of love and war i spent wrapped in a dream, weeping, constant weeping, for you, with your skin like a map and your arteries and veins all opening and closing like the mouths of hungry birdlings.

you kept me a seedling, pounding the ground down over my head with the flat of a shovel.  in the fall you would cut the wood for the winter and then spiders would get into it.  i was a girl in a fairy tale, in a tower, but i became the haunting.  haunting myself i crossed lintels and sills.  i left scratches on the panes but they showed only when the glass was fogged.

i am in danger now so i have to leave.  just keep in mind how much i wept for you.  and stop punishing me, because the asparagus was as thin as a rail and it was too expensive anyway.  it's all nonsense anyway.  there was some blood on the windowsill, just an old stain, and the words in the glass read

i love you too much to let you go

but it was nonsense, as much nonsense as breath.
and the asparagus got all salty-red-wet.

i wept in a dream

i wept in a dream, beloved.
i wept that you were not there or that you were
i wept into the stones your steps had touched
i wept into the hearts of the flowers your eyes had touched.

i wept in a dream, beloved.
teeth like stones, a broken line of jaw and throat
swallowing monumental words and
words' heat, the friction of
the tongue, lips, and teeth.

i wept in a dream that i was not near you.
when i was near you, i wept that i was near you.
i wept at the taste of your shadow in my mouth.
when i awoke, i was still weeping red tears inside the vein.

i wept in a dream: nocturne

for e m...

don't ask you to
heal me--don't want
to scar you nor
claim too much nor
ask for other than what i
really would like--just

want to
do you.

no lies and
no offers i
could make
without keeping

nothing about
the obviousness
of your beauty...



opportunity, feeling
like a red horizon
grander even
than the flush
to the forehead

opportunity what's between us
maybe

would call it
something better
but no good
with words.

i wept in a dream

masks

the image is that
i wept in a dream, lover,
that you were there and not there.

but the truth is,
i mourned you while awake. 
i mourned that i had never loved you.

that mask was made
of mother-of-pearl.  it changed
in every light until one was bright enough

to heat it
to a shattering point.

a maskless clarity.
i looked at the shards
that filled my hands
and said your name.

i wept in a dream

the delineation of an arc,
circus tent-like, of desire
for form, for shape,
for less things--for all-widening--

a singularity in the pole of the world.

i have done such things
i know not yet what they are.

actions trail behind womblike causes,
leaving white waxen tails like comets
when i closed my eyelids i saw them
burning there still,

spinning in depths
deeper than space.

control--infection--
the mechanics of a dream
i have done such things
i have done such things.

i wept in a dream

drop, tears, down deep
through the caverns of my sleep

to the river underground
deep and dark past any sound

where the water ceaseless flows
without break, but undertow

dragging down to leave your trace
featureless at its deepest place


somewhere i'd tried to escape.  had tried many times.  my hands
shuddering, unable to hold
anything.
but it was a harvest, and i will tell you why:
at the bottom of the river, a door was available.
i had been waiting for a door forever.

it was a train that took me away from here
and a train will bring me home.