You were looking away from me, western skies calling you.
Colors spilling, running dazzling you.
I was looking the other way, voices call from the east,
I saw my roots of the trees there planted at my feet.
It could be I’m searching for a place so small
with room for everything where worlds on worlds revolve.
But how can we wait?
I wouldn’t hold you back.
suppose I was the clere one and words came easy to me.
I could say I was writing a song about you and me.
Maybe that verse is yet tobe found, but waits inside of me,
a secret room, a tangled web to unweave.
But how can we wait knowing our ways,
how can we hold on,
still you know it’s not too late.
/A/

The man in 119 takes his tea alone. Mornings we all rise to wireless Verdi cries. I’m hearing opera through the door. The souls of men and women, impassioned all. Their voices climb and fall; battle trumpets call. I fill the bath and climb inside, singing.
He will not touch their pastry but every day they bring him more. Gold from the breakfast tray, I steal them all away and then go and eat them on the shore.
I draw a jackal-headed woman in the sand, sing of a lover’s fate sealed by jealous hate then wash my hand in the sea. With just three days more I’d have just about learned the entire score to Aida.
Holidays must end as you know. All is memory taken home with me: the opera, the stolen tea, the sand drawing, the verging sea, all years ago.

the legs of Maddox kitchen tables
my whole life twisted on a lathe
in a foreman’s torrent
my first English was
“faster boy if you want your pay”
barking commands
loud and simple
we could all obey

then I was forever pulling silvers
rubbed the sawdust always
deeper in my eye
varnish vapor that could linger
on my skin
it held tight
the whine of spinning blades
still echoes to bother my sleep at night

see that ox
stamped dead center
on the letter head of the company mail
four decades a spitting image
of the animal I portrayed
at Maddox Table a yoke was carved
for my neck

sun through the window oil spattered
and in mason jars
tricked plenty seeds thrive
the standing joke
around the shop was
with my green thumb
anything’d grow
my part was to laugh
show and ornery jig had
cut it at the knuckle bone

see that ox
trade mark burned
into every stick of furniture
from horn to tail
four decades a spitting image
of the animal I portrayed
at Maddox Table a yoke was carved
for my neck

was tailor made

o my Dolly was a weak
not a burdened girl
treat her to a piece of vaudville
a Wintergarden moving picture show
Bemus Point on July Sundays
by trolley we’d go

to your benefit we’s strike or bargain
with the waving fist a union man
not just for
smokes spirits candy and cologne
but for
automobile keys
cash in the bank
and the deed
on a place called home

Greta’s cedar hope chest Is full of pamphlets Glass shelves of romantic vignettes A journal laced with sedimentary prose Norma gathers and collects vintage photoplays Hair combs valentines Lillian allows the animals to scratch Leather crack Mail collect in the box coatings peel Agnes veiled cathedral dweller Smiles with benevolent pain It’s Katrina’s fair Tuesday morning As she with caution unlatches the flat door She alone cascades to the basement Careful not to spoil her Calico printed pinafore Composite traits mannerists All others dissipate Margauritte vigilant dwells upon frigid casements Sarah’s thoughts in the velocity Accusations always pierce and pass Clara abandons her passions for distastes Miss Lenora P. Sinclair Early for coffee in the pool “I’m resituating all your words” Capital Space Colon Paragraph Sylvia keeps beasts in jars labeled Kingdom phylum class order family genus species

A lie to say, “O my mountain has coal veins and beds to dig. 500 men with axes and they all dig for me.” A lie to say, “O my river where many fish do swim, half of the catch is mine when you haul your nets in.” Never will he believe that his greed is a blinding ray. No devil or redeemer will cheat him. He’ll take his gold to where he’s lying cold.
A lie to say, “O my mine gave a diamond as big as a fist.” But with every gem in his pocket, the jewels he has missed. A lie to say, “O my garden is growing taller by the day.” He only eats the best and tosses the rest away. Never will he be believe that his greed is a blinding ray. No devil or redeemer can cheat him. he’ll take his gold to where he’s lying cold. Six deep in the grave.

Something is out of reach
something he wanted
something is out of reach
he’s being taunted
something is out of reach
that he can’ beg or steal nor can he buy

his oldest pain
and fear in life
there’ll not be time
his oldest pain
and fear in life
there’ll not be time
A lie to say “O my forest has trees that block the sun and when I cut them down I don’t answer to anyone.” No, no, never will he believe that his greed is a blinding ray no devil or redeemer can cheat him. He’ll take his gold where he’s lying cold.