SONGS FROM THE HOUSE OF DEATH,
OR HOW TO MAKE IT THROUGH TO THE END
OF A RELATIONSHIP

for Donald Hall

1.

From the house of death there is rain.

From rain is flood and flowers.

And flowers emerge through the ruins

of those who left behind

stores of corn and dishes,

turquoise and bruises

from the passion

of fierce love.

2.

I run my tongue over the skeleton

jutting from my jaw. I taste

the grit of heartbreak.

3.

The procession of spirits

who walk out of their bodies

is ongoing. Just as the procession

of those who have loved us

will go about their business

of making a new house

with someone else who smells

like the dust of a strange country.

4.

The weight of rain is unbearable to the sky

eventually. Just as desire will

burn a hole through the sky

and fall to earth.

5.

I was surprised by the sweet embrace

of the perfume of desert flowers after the rain

though after all these seasons

I shouldn’t be surprised.

6.

All cities will be built and then destroyed.

We built too near the house of the gods of lightning,

too close to the edge of a century.

What could I expect,

my bittersweet.

7.

Even death who is the chief of everything

on this earth (all undertakings, all matters of human

form) will wash his hands, stop to rest under

the cottonwood before taking you from me

on the back of his horse.

8.

Nothing I can sing

will bring you back.

Not the songs of a hundred horses running

until they become wind

Not the personal song of the rain

who makes love to the earth.

9.

I will never forget you. Your nakedness

haunts me in the dawn when I cannot distinguish your

flushed brown skin from the burning horizon, or my hands.

The smell of chaos lingers in the clothes

you left behind. I leave you

there.