other echoes

but the most i can manage are two fingers maybe three, if you’re up to it that night just enough to cross the threshold not enough to make myself at home the rest will be guesswork the riddles i set myself to pass the time until you come and i go home for the night bearing only the scent of you away upon my hands

I. now i lay me down to sleep-- i wake with my graveclothes wound around my ankles. morning scatters the frayed scraps of the dream, but my soul is an uneasy tenant, hesitating at the threshold as my eyelids close-open-close like the warped screen door at the back of the house, that rattles as it catches the wind from the west. II. i used to pick chicory behind the church in the august afternoon, the air thick with the heat. my mother lies beside the tree over yonder-- the shadow grows wider every year. i wander among the uneven rows of stones; the arms of my friends are strewn with flowers. petals cover their gaping eyes and we pretend they are asleep. III. the days dim, as they must, and the leaves burn red and gold, one last bit of bravado before the dark. come with me into the woods, you said one day. we still have an hour before dinner, and the walk will do you good. the trail was ours, made from years of footprints to and from our favorite spot. you had a hard cider in your hand, and you let me take a sip before you struck me in the head, and i fell beside the lichened log that we used to use as a bridge to cross the stream. but it had been rotten for years, pitted with larvae and the innocence of mushrooms. when at last i lay still at your feet, facedown, eyes against the dirt, in my first pretense at eternal sleep, you stopped, panting, and crouched down beside me to check your work. but the woods were silent, and i walked with you back to the shed to get a shovel and a tarp. every breath you gave was my twin, brief and formless, and scattered by the wind. you planted me next to the fallen log, and wiped your hands on the denim at your knees. our dinner was still simmering on the stove, and you could make it back before twilight, if you ran. IV. you are old now, and my pictures still adorn your walls. i want to keep it just the way it was, you tell your friends. you light a candle every night, against the growing dark, and place it in the window, to guide me home, or to my place of rest. or so you tell yourself, but i see the way your hands shake as you strike the match, and the flame pushes back the darkness, but not much. you've taken to sleeping with the lights on, to ward me off. but this is my house too, and i am here, in the darkness that swallows it like a mouth, and in the ribcage of the rafters and these walls, and in the dirt that waits patiently beneath. i sit beside you, on my well-made half of the bed; you cannot stay awake forever, and i will watch you as you sleep.

it's lovely, isn't it? you shout and run away across the field, while here i squat, bare feet square against the dirt, and look down at my mother's face, old and ugly and familiar.  i take after her, i think. i've got her eyes, tired and worn out, but still in love with the night sky, and the illusory softness of the stars. 

still            and silent                                  and polite

we meet again, years later, up for tea your scarf is nice, i tell you. and your hair we subside into silence like the slow drying of rain on the kitchen window. the curved handle of the teapot is a question that we do not touch. our tea cools i stand and put the kettle on and in my absence you keep talking at our younger faces on the wall at the faded photos on the sunny wall 

they tell us all to drop our burdens, to travel light as chaff  upon the wind. but the belly of the wheat  is swollen, driven half  into the ground by rain.

skip the stair three down and wait-- you're not supposed to be awake, and yet you belong here, as the night steals into your ribs  and lifts your breath away on its back, like the old black cat that watches you when you get the mail in the skintight days under the dry sun by the wilting yellow flowers. tonight the moon can be your unwed mother, swollen with shy pride, and you will dream of her in the heaviness of mid-day, as you watch the silver disk of the old clock try in vain  to get free. you have swept and dusted  every corner of this wide room, until the bones are picked clean.  sit in the middle of the sofa, on the edge, with your knees together, like a lady, and dig your nails into your thighs-- ten pale crescents, which lighten the weight of your father's body on you a week back. the days get shorter as you grow, and one day you will run away,  like wind over the grass under the stars. 

until tomorrow, perhaps. 

you make it so easy to love you,  even when i steel my heart against your eyes, which pick me apart  nerve by muscle by tendon by vein,  until i am nothing but willing bone and soft marrow, craving the touch  of your mouth, which is so warm. 

the steady light of middle morning as we linger over cooling tea, the housework yet to be done.  but it can wait--it can wait a minute-- everything can wait for you. at last, i can be still enough  to feel your touch. i am like water  in your hands-- i come alive  with your breath. oh, be gentle, be gentle with me, and i will run  through the cracks and grooves  that mark your palm. do you know? i love you in the slanting  light of age, and the dust that settles  on your skin, that loveworn map  of where i'll go, and where i've been. time slows around you and your gentle gravity, and i return, always  to your hands.  

i wish i could take the ocean inside of you, and pour it out between the mountains, where it belongs. you were never meant to bear this weight. inside you, the tides rise     to your eyelids, heavy in the dark. some say they can see the night sky shining in your eyes, and call that beautiful. but i know you were never meant to bear these falling stars.  your ribs are turning inside out, a universe expanding, burning. and all i want is you to know the normal weight  of skin on bone.

i'd like to exchange it, please. there's nothing wrong with it; it's just that other one might fit me better. 

but now you stay inside, away from the guttering daylight, and pick the fine grey hairs from all your clothes.

bought secondhand.