Sarah & Jeff’s Wedding
6 November 2004
Let us begin
by being free.
Then, to know just
what we need—
Night without
a light
The dark
full of dream.
And you & I, I
& you, & all
the letters in between.
Lady, won’t you wait
out the hurricane
all night at my place—
we’ll take cover like
the lamps & I’ll
let you oil
my scalp. Please, I needs
a good woman’s hands
caught in my hair, turning
my knots to butter.
All night we’ll churn.
Dawn
will lean in too soon—
you’ll leave out into
the wet world, winded
& alone, knowing
the me only
midnight sees.
How I know
happiness is this
sadness in
the fruit of it—
To think
you were to me dead
once I did not know
you & now
the bloom of you—
yes’m—fills
my mouth!
Happy has me
round the throat—
throttled—& won’t let go
The martyr is borne
through town on the backs
of believers.
Such a ghost ship!
all skull, ragged sails.
Your arms arrows—
I quiver
& am unwell.
Touching you I heal
places I never knew
needed.
If faith this is not
do not let me know.
You my splinter,
my swath of bone.
WOODWIND:
This morning your mouth
Was all I could think about
FIDDLE:
Like a violin you leave
The sweetest
Bruise just beneath
My chin.
UPRIGHT BASS:
Love that place
Where your hip hits
Your waist
& my head fits
Perfect, rests
Like music
SLIDE TROMBONE:
All day that scent
In the crook
Of your neck
Distracts
HORNS:
Woke early, the light
Blues all in my bed
Where I wish
You warmed instead.
RHYTHM SECTION:
Without you the room
Grown small—
Only then can I see
How each night we rocked
A steady groove
Where the headboard
Hugged the wall.
The moon of you
I want to meet—
faraway, waning.
Asleep in the sun
of your arms
then cold
when you’re gone.
In the dark where we
can no longer see
I want your hands blurry
over me, reading
the braille of my body.
Your narcotic touch.
Your such & such
makes me rush
home through dark
slick streets & hush
to our bright
too-hot house—only you
sleep somewhere else.
I miss you like a monument
misses its dead—
the stone heads
staring, the hands
stiff, or still,
half-eroded
by time. Tell me
& I’ll write what you want
near my name
Storm me.
Send
me down into the dirt
& dark, raise
me like thunder up.
Show me the sun
of your legs open.
Shine.
Let our shadows
spill into
each other, let
our souls
brighten
& become one.
Let our bones break
into song.
That year the crops shouldered
the sky & our bellies stayed
so full we never
knew hunger:
a hound dog
hanging round
the front porch
begging whatever
we tossed under.
It stayed summer.
We worked the days long
till our hands
burned bone, were bruise
—his & mine—
then all night touched
lightly in the heat.
Kissed
his scarred side.
We named each other’s bodies
with what few words
we had need of.
Morning always arrived
too soon
lost in skin’s rain—
he’d kiss my eyes awake.
So, that evening—
my man out
by the barn, the lowing—
sun like a beehive
fallen, broken open
& spilling honey—
I almost didn’t hear
the knock
despite our small house, lost
in my own mind.
But there it was
again, the Salesman
with his song, his hello
offering up
quick crops
or a cleaner better
than any other,
some pitch
to get rich.
Hissed
his promises
into my ears
which hadn’t known pearls
or rings—
which suddenly felt naked
as we were those nights
I plumb forgot
to be ashamed. No,
I said through the screen,
Thank you—
But he stood at my door
asking was I covered—
he was selling
Life, which of course
meant Death, meant
What If.
Long had I lived
without thought
of after—our days
long, the dark
you could walk
without worry. But that Salesman
in his shiny
suit, the jacket he shed like skin
said otherwise, showed
me lists & pictures
& my own
carelessness—
he promised us a plot
where together
my man & I could be buried
beneath an apple tree.
I had thought we would live
as lovers forever—
never thought of wife
or father or the future—
But now I saw
it everywhere: hunger
is what held
the world together, kept
the moon married
to water
& the dog barking
in need of company.
All at once the fields
seemed silent
as God—
The ground red
& hard
like my hands—
The soil suddenly
turned to rust
& I wanted to be richer
than it was—
so I signed.
The Salesman’s smile
a dotted line.
And like that,
he was gone.
Soon the children
arrived, their mouths
that needed filling—
the crops began
balding—the dog whining—
& I began to salt
away money
like pork. But no matter
how much we smoked
& kept, it never
was enough.
Everywhere, hunger:
the children needing
new things, & we
growing old of each other—
And the rain
remembered to fall,
& the fall
remembered to rain—
autumn turned
to red mud
& our clothes, new, to stain.
