Only Skin

And there was a booming above you

That night black airplanes flew over the sea

And they were lowing and shifting like

Beached whales

Shelled snails

As you strained and you squinted to see

The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry

You froze in your sand shoal

Prayed for your poor soul;

Sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl

And when the bread broke —

Fell in bricks of wet smoke —

My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke

Then there was a silence you took to mean something:

Mean, Run, sing

For alive you will evermore be

And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulking

Has gone east

While you’re left to explain them to me —

Released

From their hairless and blind cavalry

With your hands in your pockets

Stubbily running

To where I’m unfresh

Undressed and yawning —

Well, what is this craziness?

This crazy talking?

You caught some small death

When you were sleepwalking

It was a dark dream, darlin;

It’s over

The firebreather is beneath the clover

Beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever:

A toothless hound-dog choking on a feather

But I took my fishing pole (fearing your fever)

Down to the swimming hole, where there grows a bitter herb

That blooms but one day a year, by the riverside —

I’d bring it here:

Apply it gently

To the love you’ve lent me

While the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed

And the string sobbed

As it cut through the hustling breeze

And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly

Gone treacly

Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat;

In a frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath

Press on me

We are restless things

Webs of seaweed are swaddling

You call upon the dusk of the

Musk of a squid:

Shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib

Rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes

I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it!

Smell of a stonefruit being cut and being opened

Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking

And when the fire moves away

Fire moves away, son

Why would you say

I was the last one?

Scrape your knee: it is only skin

Makes the sound of violins

And when I cut your hair, and leave the birds all of the trimmings

I am the happiest woman among all women

And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see

Knee deep, trudging along —

The seagull weeps ‘so long’ —

I’m humming a threshing song —

Until the night is over, hold on

Hold on;

Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn

I have got some business out at the edge of town

Candy weighing both of my pockets down

Till I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them

(and knowing how the commonfolk condemn

What it is I do, to you, to keep you warm:

Being a woman. Being a woman.)

But always up the mountainside you’re clambering

Groping blindly, hungry for anything;

Picking through your pocket linings —

Well, what is this?

Scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?

I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain

Little sister, he will be back again

I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain

Spiders’ ghosts hang, soaked and dangling

Silently from all the blooming cherry trees

In tiny nooses, safe from everyone —

Nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done —

Be a woman. Be a woman

Though we felt the spray of the waves

We decided to stay, 'till the tide rose too far

We weren’t afraid, 'cause we know what you are;

And you know that we know what you are

Awful atoll —

O, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow!

Bawl bellow:

Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow

Toddle and roll;

Teethe an impalpable bit of leather

While yarrow, heather and hollyhock

Awkwardly molt along the shore

Are you mine?

My heart?

Mine anymore?

Stay with me for awhile

That’s an awfully real gun

And though life will lay you down

As the lightning has lately done

Failing this, failing this

Follow me, my sweetest friend

To see what you anointed

In pointing your gun there

Lay it down! Nice and slow!

There is nowhere to go

Save up;

Up where the light, undiluted, is

Weaving, in a drunk dream

At the sight of my baby, out back:

Back on the patio

Watching the bats bring night in

— while, elsewhere

Estuaries of wax-white

Wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped

Last week, our picture window

Produced a half-word

Heavy and hollow

Hit by a brown bird

We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake

And pant and labor over every intake

I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace

Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place

Said, “dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you

And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view.”

Then in my hot hand, she slumped her sick weight

We tramped through the poison oak, heartbroke and inchoate

The dogs were snapping and you cuffed their collars

While I climbed the treehouse. Then how I hollered!

Where she’d lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two;

Then saw the treetops, cocked her head, and up and flew

(While back in the world that moves, often, according to

The hoarding of these clues)

Dogs still run roughly around

Little tufts of finch-down

And the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland,

But his hand, in my hand, made them hale and harmless

While down in the lowlands, the crops are all coming;

We have everything

Life is thundering blissful towards death

In a stampede

Of his fumbling green gentleness

You stopped by;

I was all alive

In my doorway, we shucked and jived

And when you wept, I was gone;

See, I got gone when I got wise

But I can’t with certainty say we survived

Then down and down

And down and down

And down and deeper

Stoke, without sound

The blameless flames

You endless sleeper

Through fire below

And fire above

And fire within

Sleep through the things that couldn’t have been

If you hadn’t have been

And when the fire moves away

Fire moves away, son

Why would you say

I was the last one?

All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone

Take my bones, I don’t need none

Cold, cold cupboard, lord, nothing to chew on!

Suck all day on a cherry stone

Dig a little hole not three inches round —

Spit your pit in a hole in the ground

Weep upon the spot for the starving of me!

Till up grows a fine young cherry tree

When the bough breaks, what’ll you make for me?

A little willow cabin to rest on your knee

What’ll I do with a trinket such as this?

Think of your woman, who’s gone to the west

But I’m starving and freezing in my measly old bed!

Then I’ll crawl across the salt flats, to stroke your sweet head

Come across the desert with no shoes on!

I love you truly

Or I love no-one

Fire moves away. Fire moves away, son

Why would you say that I was the last one, last one?

Clear the room! There’s a fire, a fire, a fire

Get going

And I’m going to be right behind you

And if the love of a woman or two, dear

Could move you to such heights

Then all I can do

Is do, my darling, right by you