Fatal Kind of Deafness

There were times, mostly winters, in this lovely house when my choices seemed between solitary confinement and solitary confinement.

You do not die of loneliness.
Carrying the weight
of your own soul through
the hallways of the night,
hearing only the whisper of
the dead and living gone--
this is not fatal.  Memory
and fantasy mingle well.

Worry
when the stars stop breathing.
Worry
when the whispered
prayers of dark trees
no longer echo in your mind,
or ocean's tides exert no
voice in the choices of your life.

When all the music
in the dropping of a pin
ceases to ease the wringing
of your pain-wracked heart,
and you stop believing in
a day after tomorrow,
know that your mortal
illness has set in.

The Wheat and the Tares

(Daughters of the King, my friend rebukes me, are never weeds.)

My father was only a king of dreams.
I married Pontius for security and his
mastery of everything, including our bed.

I learned to love the man, packaging
my life with his, even here in this
forsaken and uncivilized post.

We dine with adjuncts, their wives,
and local potentates. Our table boasts
the best this scrubby little tributary

can offer, and as procurator
Pontius imports delicacies from across
the Empire. We live above it all.

Yet, I am fascinated by the young
Teacher. So apolitical.  So radically
unwise and generous with care.

I collect stories of every woman
with whom he speaks. Secretly
I send gold coins with Joanna and

Susannah.  And if, when I finally slip
away to meet him, he calls me
"daughter," it is only to open my heart:

I weep like a silly child.

I tell Pilate to have nothing to do
with this man's death, but see
how he listens to me?

It's bigger than any of us. All my husband's
good works, and it's this one crucifixion
he'll be remembered for.

In dreams most nights I see fields
of grain--the way we Romans plant--
the purple vetch among the weeds.

I don't know why, oh, I don't know why
I should feel this glad in the economy
of a Hebrew God.

Elvis and Godiva

These are my names for them,
because he impersonated "The King" when
first he came to town.
She wends her way with flowing hair,
naked in her difference:
her body curls painfully into itself--
a question mark of a woman beside
an exclamation point of a man.
Winter and summer, I see them confirm,
step by step, the streets of town,
wade silently, slowly through our curiosity,
propel a shopping cart of clothes and plastic bags.

They ask nothing of me,
yet I am disturbed, un-homed
by their dereliction of the material,
by their undefined devotion to each other.

Pajama-panted prophet, tell us:
What is it, really, between two people?
Hand in his, are you lovers?
Or are you a premonition--
setting us a poignant itinerary
through the rubble of
stock market and real estate and
tumbling of the world we
once built of dreams?

Your Door

My friend Barbara's house was cream with blue trim and PINK doors.  That's the kind of lady she was.

I am walking down the street 

between your house

and mine towards the bay.

I am trying to comprehend

the idea--as if 

anyone could--

that suddenly your address

has changed to 

Nowhere on Earth.  I notice

the sky.  After the storm, it is

blue and yellow and yes,

undeniably pink--

pink, pink all over, as if

the heavens have 

painted your new door

just for you,

and it's as big

as your benevolent and entirely

unconventional heart.

Island in Spring

Sun's up early.
Slat-backed chairs lean away from the bay
and wait for straw-hatted visitors
to hunker with books the way
gulls ensconce on rocks by the shore.
Upstairs in the inn
a teenage housekeeper is already at it--
briskly strips beds, vacuums floors,
snickers to her boyfriend on her cell.

Winter gripped this island hard.
In retaliation flowers uprise.
Starry clematis rocket ramparts,
and apple blossoms mass on wind-twisted limbs.
Lupines and buttercups grasp, splash violet and lemon
over steel gray rock and marsh meadow.
Wherever lilacs do not bloom, natives plant.
The morning ferry carried flats of purple petunias.

Later, fog erases the bay.
A suggestion of a house inhabits a yard
like a ghost with pockets full of stark memories.

Hope Springs

Don't we always long to do the perennial dance of the seasons? Maybe it's even more important to revisit the places we have loved as we sense our lives closing.

These two purple afternoon shadows
take time to cross the restaurant floor.
The woman, frayed, disheveled,
peers through sea glass above a tired shawl.
He bends and bobs like a dandelion ready to blow.
She is tethered to her partner by years
and plastic tubing from the tank she bears.
He steps and halts, steps and halts, steps and halts.
They waltz the distance to their table
overlooking the harbor.

"I thought you had him leashed," I tease carefully.
"I do," she says, "or maybe he has me."
He chortles, chokes, then rests his head.

"We've come here every year," she confesses,
"April and October.
I didn't have the courage last fall,
but it's April...."

Follow the Lie

Okay. So maybe I'm jaded these days.

Follow it back in history
over aprons and cake mixes
and blue-eyed baby dolls,
and nights spent in factories
and in smoky bars
through narrow berths in stinking holds
or lofty staterooms above,
to cramped cottages
or up the castle stairs
in and out of beds with bolsters
or simply bracken,
past casks of wine
and gold coin of every realm.
See the lifting of a veil.
Hear the whisper,
Trust me.
Trace it all the way back
to the promise of a missing rib
and see the unfolding
of all broken hearts.