She Takes Me Places

Happy Valentines Day Wife

Cover: Mt. Kitahdin

SongsSummation....................................................4The Rescued Man.........................................6Rachel the Student .......................................7We Have a Deal ...........................................9Old Saw ......................................................11The Rapture ...............................................13A Flag.........................................................14Undeterred..................................................15She..............................................................18Beauty and Wisdom....................................20Damn Your Eyes.........................................21

Summation

I know that you loved me

though the rails clacked

and the TV raged

because I was no good in the way

you would want good done

because I was the one

Particularly, or perhaps

it was the light of late afternoon

that rolled and stretched

like a davenport dream –

my hand on your hipbone,

like a witness taking an oath

The Rescued Man

i am like the piano you playthat always falters up ahead

a man but also a dog needingsomething to be brave for

i praise the day you gutted this fish, and zipped away the offending spine

pull me to bed with you tonightlet me sleep this curiosity off

the way the lion feels for his mate when she brings him red meat

it's the love of the dog sleepingcurled at the monastery gate

Rachel the Student

In the lab there was a cat.Its head was shaved bare,and sticking out of a wad of puttywas a wire.When the cat saw Rachel come in, it jumped.But it didn't land on all fours,as most cats do.It hit a cabinet drawer and fell on its side.And Rachel wants to know what good is a catlike that. Every day she bikes by the cancer hospital,chain grease blackening her pant legs.Today she looked and a face in a windowwas looking out at her,then pulled the drapes shut. A big exam is on the wayand she's missed her period

and her neighbor upstairs plays the saxophonelate at night,and nothing she says makes any difference.I don't understand it,she starts crying one day,why do people want to be mothers.

We Have a Deal

The woman was hanged onstageand the lifting sprained her backand since the opera things have been difficult.

When she is in spasm, I knead outThe knots and tanglesfrom her spine.

When I massage her I work from her neck to her soles.She whimpers like a doe,if does whimper – I don’t know.

She is the generaldirecting the attackindicating with a nod

what happens next and how.

She is the wounded lionessstaggering up a rockAnd despite the painShe will make it to the top

So that when we say farewelland she beams at me as now,on the railway landing,heading off to war,

She will be the femmeMy lion-womanAnd I am her man for the duration

Old Saw

Out walking with Red, we came uponan ancient cottonwood tree, standing likea giant fork in the forest.Into that fork another tree had fallen,so that the original cottonwood stood straight while the dead fallen tree leaned into its crux,and every breeze made the live tree groanas the dead trunk rubbed against it,it was the sound of a balloon roughly handled,or metal failing underwater,like a natural cello's lowest stringrubbed raw of its rosin. Eventually the dead tree had worked a groovein the crotch of the live one,and with the passage of time was wearing its waydownward, splitting it down the middle.One main arm of the live tree had died,

and owls and birds and other thingshad made their apartments in the soft dry flesh. Rachel and I stared up at this natural sawand we took one another's hands instinctivelyas if to assure ourselves that the rubbing of one life against another lifewas a warming thing always.

But love can come into our lives and life move on.What is left when love remainssawing gently on our limbs?

The Rapture

Walking with Rachel,We detect a fragranceSo sweet and so intense

Like honey, lilac and swirled violetsWe look at one anotherWith a look of deepest longing

Until we step into a clearingAnd see the turquoiseplastic Port O Potty.

A Flagis what we should be likein a stiff cold windevery fiber stretched taut,buffeted untilwe come apart,every momentripping at our seams.

Undeterred

en route to our rendezvousi am handed a lit stick of dynamiteand being politeI do not refusewith blackened face and smoldering collari proceed, failing to noticethe two-ton Mosler safeplummeting from a fifth story windowthough badly accordionedi make my way to you

despite stepping on countless rakesthat that boink me in the face,

despite steam rollersmaking asphalt road of memaking crunching and poppingsounds of my bones

electrical sparks from fallen electrical linestouching me and turning me intoleaping swastikas in the air

so many efforts madeto keep me from you

the locomotive rushingfrom the hastily painted tunnel

me poised for what seems like eonsabove the manhole holebefore fallingthe wet cement awaiting me belowis hardening

but do not doubtI will be with you shortly

She

She moved through the worldlike a jaguar giantess,serene and purposeful.No one messed with her,or if they did,we never knew about it.No wonder we loped after her,longing for her safety,aching for the teat andthe lick of approval,promising to marry herso she could never slip away.Now she's gone, and thereare others, also beautiful.But one look into their eyes and you seethey are broken, and fearfulthey cannot protect you, they arein greatest danger themselves.

Still we cannot turn away,we chase after these frightened creatures,as if they had the powerto make us whole.We overtake and stand panting over their trembling selves.

Beauty and Wisdom

there is a well in the irisand everything tumbles in

and no man is immunefrom this characteristic error

beauty looks like wisdombecause the eyes amaze us

something that wonderfulmust see something

Damn Your Eyes

blue windmills turning sunlight into breadthe murmuring turbines of you

the gills of the goldfishin a porcelain tub

languid petals of unplugged fanspiraling in the breeze

quick wink of the guillotineflared skirt of mushroom

lightswitch squirting darknessthrough the room

venus flytrap closing onsome hungry living thing