I poison doux et chaste
The true griefs are eager as mink
and nothing consoles them,
no catalogue of mothering or sails,
no time and tide, no token of repentance.
Out in the yard,
at the near edge of mudslick and rain,
your skin wastes away
in its birdcage of milksop and rubble,
that stain where the mouth should be
like unravelled yarn,
a cri de coeur, a toast,
a false confession,
your life as a hymn tune,
strung out on fishhooks, like worms.
II noble et tragique
It’s never the tragic and noble
you like to imagine,
this minor key of having been bereft
for years, before you chance upon a field
of mud and thistles in the summer rain
and see it clear: the weather of a heart
so commonplace, you think it must belong
to someone else.
There’s nothing sweet and chaste: the actual poison
spreading in your blood is just a mix
of chalk and sugar, grains of powder-blue
and rose-red, while the life that was to come
is something on the wind, until the wind
decays along a wire of thorns and gravel.
III Passons passons puisque tout passe
I found a goldfinch
injured in the grass
and carried it into the house
for a moment’s shelter.
It didn’t live
and that was no surprise
but even as it faded
from the light
I felt its mercy,
something only half-
imagined, and more gift
than I can say,
grace being such a thing
as I find small
too readily, distracted from the light
of what there is
by what I thought
I wanted.
IV le bruit parmi le vent
They say there are children, still,
in the furthest meadows.
In hollows of chalk and moon
they make their beds
from Lady’s-smock
and strands of Old Man’s Beard;
like pilgrims turned away
from blessèd knucklebones
or locks of hair,
they have that look
of having come too far
to be forgiven.
Beguiled by their vita nuova,
I love them well
and bait my snares for them
on warm nights, when the wind is like a veil
between the apple orchard
and the field;
and they have come
to love me well enough
to stay clear of my traps
till morning,
when I go out at first light
and gather up the shadows they have left
like hints of pike
and wolfskin in the grass,
wisps of the new life
snagged between trigger and spear.