WHO I AM

Do you see me at all?
Do you know who I am?
Do you see the real me?
Do you hear me call?

I am Pain
I am Beauty
I am Madness
I am Peace
I am Silence
I am Rage
I am Grief

I am woman.

OCEANS

There are oceans
in those eyes of yours,
oceans wide and deep,
holding untold grief,
pale jewels that glimmer
in the afternoon sun's fading light,
glimmers that hint of fire and steel.

IMITATION

I suppose we fake our lives
to cheat Death,
and honestly, who knows any better
that it's not really you in that bed
but something else—
something that has your face,
and sometimes, if you forget,
your dreams, too?

But that's not you,
only a shell,

and meanwhile,
the real you crumbles to dust
under the bed.

TONIGHT

Tonight,
these are the hardest lines to write;

To write that I remember him
and the way his eyes smiled.

To write that they smile for me no longer
and now they smile for another,
another whose hair is blacker than the blackest sea,
whose voice belongs to him
as mine did in the whispers of the night.

To write that there can be no tomorrow now.

To write that they have extinguished the light
and it is hard to swim in the river of my tears,
my raging river of grief,
and it is far simpler
to let the river wash me clean
and set my soul free
tonight.

NAKED

Your words leave me
naked,
all my soul's scars exposed,
my nerves turned to tender wires,
wisps of a plant's roots
that have turned brittle to the touch.


You leave me
naked,
my very bones exposed,
my desires turned to water,
drops of the river of my tears
that cannot be caught.

You leave me
cold,
cold in the wake of your words,

and though
I shiver,
I stand
naked,
willingly,
before you
that I might give myself
to the poetry of your hands.

I don't know why,
but speaking to you again
after so long
has left me
with the aftertaste of sadness
in my mouth.

EAR


My ear is a cup
that catches every word
you speak,

a bowl
that cradles your voice-

oh, that my ear were
a jar
to keep
the way your voice shatters the wind.

"father" in blue

You left us one night.
Shadows loomed large on my wall
until dawn's light melted them away.


Did you know the air hung still
after you were gone?
The scent of your cologne has faded
to a dim memory.

"Papa" is not a word
but a ghost in the house
who walks our rooms,

who tucks us in,
who leaves the toilet seat up,
who reigns in the empty chair at the table's head.

DICHOTOMY

In reality,
while I sit here calmly
at my desk,
apparently intent
on drawing
a neat diagram of solutions,

I am not here.

In reality,
while I sit here calmly
at my desk,
I am sitting
under the blue, blue sky,
sitting like a lotus
under a large tree
with my guitar,
singing so softly
that no one hears.

WHAT WAS
for Dino, who sang the song

There isn't any real way
to live,
only perhaps
as a song sung softly
at daybreak
to ward the darkness away-
a whisper in the wind,
a song sung from deep within,
a sound that travels
but a few feet from you
before it is eaten
by the great, big world.
The breath leaves your mouth,
ripe with hope,
and then is lost.

But it does not matter.

Having been born,
you are a song, a breath
from God's mouth,
and before you are gone,
you will have changed
the world
by having been.

* 4.February.2002 *

WATCHING THE MOON

Last night,
the moon was my knife,
a knife of ice,
lying on my sky-table.

Tonight,
the moon is my cradle,
a cradle of silver
sailing on the black sea.

Tomorrow,
the moon will be my bowl,
a bowl of pale gold
in the heart of shadow.

* written 21.February.2002 *

NOW

For Paulo, who taught me to look in the mirror

Yes, it must be a shock—
the face in the mirror
is your own,
but it isn't really you:
what happened
to the laughing child of yesterday?

It's simple.

You grew.

Now,
someone else looks back at you
when you look into the mirror,
and now,
you cut close to the skin
when you take up your father's razor.

But it must be so.
It must be like this.

Because it's only in pictures
that we don't grow.

* written 5.February.2002 *