Emphatico

Every sunrise, sometimes strangers’ eyes.

Not necessarily swans, even crows,

even the evening fusillade of bats.

That place where the creek goes underground,

how many weeks before I see you again?

Stacks of books, every page, character’s

rage and poet’s strange contraption

of syntax and song, every song

even when there isn’t one.

Every thistle, splinter, butterfly

over the drainage ditches. Every stray.

Did you see the meteor shower?

Every question, conversation

even with almost nothing, cricket, cloud,

because of you I’m talking to crickets, clouds,

confiding in a cat. Everyone says

Come to your senses, and I do, of you.

Every touch electric, every taste you,

every smell, even burning sugar, every

cry and laugh. Toothpicked samples

at the farmer’s market, every melon,

Red cloth I lie on the ground otherwise nothing could hold

I put my hand on the ground the membrane is gone and nothing does hold

The angels of lime

come unraveled

at a vibration

of chance and breakfast.

The demons were concealing

sands when they discovered

the spirit

of explosions. 

Demons, angels

go on picking up

what corresponds to each

from the deck

of the afterworld: 

From fatigue comes the star,

from the rose the rivers,

from the hand the path

... and from the white nets

has always

spoken to me

sometimes just blue 

sharp as a thorn

and sometimes cold

like a human 

and down 

from the sea cliff 

there are no strangers 

to her sound

all her animals

know

waves 

dance their way 

to the shore 

in shouts 

at high tide

and dreamlike at low

when night comes in

its darkening face

climbs the horizon

and the poor bones 

of driftwood

wait to rise as peaceful 

smoke from a fire ring

to a heaven trailing

like a veil