Three Poems

LETHE

here—                                          all along the path 
                                                     lead me
as if each step could do more than amplify 

                          the silence you left for me

look—               how the grass bows a slow
           gravity                              —dislocated
                        footfall after 
footfall after

                                          how the river runs 
                 to your body   runs

headwaters welling from every fracture

                                                     already
                                        i am forgetting
               how to pronounce your name

my good-for-nothing tongue                plumbs 
your good-for-nothing mouth

                                                      —mud-choked 
estuary split                   open with seed

those gardens that will never be

                             birds come with their hunger 
and i let them—

because the berries are too red
because secrets are graves         and i’m tired
                                                         of digging

there are other ways to make a body sacred

hoofprints measure
                           the width
                                       of every field
                                                               and i follow
simple as that—

what does it matter if the dreams are wordless?
if i am visited by ghosts or if
                                                   i have become one?

SELF PORTRAIT AS CIRCUMFERENCE & CROWS

for months after i dream 
             of sawing circles
                          out of ice      allow myself 
                                                fall through

                          since i outgrew my last body 
             winter arrives             one black bird
at a time & the snow
             ghosting into my memories
                          no matter how
                                                    i hold them

                          don’t tell me it’s only october 
                          that i have no sense of direction

             each day           i gather in the rafters
of every conversation 
             strange-voiced            as a god
                                                    distrusting 
             the construct of god
the idea that healing is possible

             if i am                to make you believe in 
             me        i must retrieve my body

                          walk across     the water
                                                    of a crow’s eye 
                          to find
             the blackhole               at its center 
to learn the art of undrowning

IN WHICH I BECOME THE WANING CRESCENT MOON

                              all night entranced              i watch my back
                                                 undress             mirror into
                      mirror   my scarlet mole             a tiny hole through
 my heart   there   breaths fatten like             wax   bead onto
                       sheets   room soft with             the opposite of
                                   candlelit   where             nothing
                                           touches me

                                                                             i crumble
                       where nothing touches              me   my magnetic field
                                   erratic and weak             admits all 
                                     manner of dark             matter    i draw back
                             along an involuntary            muscle   immune to
                                          stillness and             gravity   one ear
                             brimming with silver             one eye a field
                                          of milkweed

                                                                             i do not mean to 
                                         haunt myself             but i do   linger
                            in this disintegration              loop   with minutes
                                 gathering   ponds             in my palms
                                          with my face             eclipsed   in a shard
                                       of dinner plate             which i rise to find
                                  moon after moon             which i run from
                                                   circling             wolfish
                                  for the bitterness             of my own fingers
                                          in my mouth