1

Clear

clothes, pillows, books, letters

of the germs of need –

the need to have things mean

more than they do.

Claim verticality.

2

Trust only the words that begin

their patter

in the rain-shadow valley

of the mind.

3

Some nights

you’ve seen

enough earth

and sky

for one lifetime

but know you still have unfinished business with both.

4

So here again,

that old cliché, pain,

and its endless syntax

of gurgle and clot.

But better swamp –

always better swamp –

than scrubland.

5

Settling is bondage.

Wandering, vagabondage.

(Someone said that before?)

(Citizenship is bondage.

Dual citizenship, James Bondage.

That’s a first!)

6

Once you know

what it’s like

to be chieftain,

serf, concubine

and prop,

what’s left?

You choose story

or you choose curtains

7

8

9