we are a people
without bodies
our feet
no longer
walk your lands
our hands
turn no pages
in the ancient book
like our selves
now burned
but our eyes
our eyes
you still see
whose gaze
your bodies
in all their emptiness
cannot avert
we are a people
In these Mennonite hills in Central Pennsylvania,
13 or more fat sheep drift across the ridge, slower
than the looming darkness. A trail of barking dogs turns
them into a solid mass by circling round and round,
then spinning it like a pedal-pumped wheel, so that sheep
clump singly off. Hurled in drowsy slowness, upended,
flapping their whittled legs, they slide like bashful children,
unyielding to the board, through the gate into the pen—
there is no farmer in sight, no son to inspect.
from Epistles to Eve
Uni-versus, together turning around
He drives and the highway un-spools under our tires.
I knit—stitch, and stitch—my yarn un-spooling
from its skein onto my needles, turning at the end of
each row. The way we’re constrained to turn around
at a dead end and search for a different destination.
The way our planet moves, turns, revolves, tilts,
maintains its course within the universe.
How clearly I remember
the friend encased in metal,
her head sticking out of the iron lung
with row on row of other tubed children
staring at the ceiling, wondering
why their limbs were withering
as they lay there inert, waiting
for visitors or death.
I still know folks who recovered,
limping a bit into adulthood
or walking with a crutch
that made me think they’d broken a leg
on the ski slopes. Some have trouble
swallowing, an echo of what happened
years ago. And I remember how
The lips of the angels
Blister and flame.
Their mouth pieces painful
From trumpeting name
After name. They lay down
Their horns and the dead
Still arrive, dying to drown
Out the hush in their heads
That would crush paradise.
You have their hymns
In your skin memorized,
Spilling your lungs and your limbs.
You don’t sleep. You don’t sleep.
Your delicate chest
How it wails and it weeps
That overcome angels might rest.
No, Matthew’s gospel doesn’t mention me
when I was in that boat, wrestling that sail.
But someone had to do it—I could see
the waves were high, the wind a roaring gale.
The others wouldn’t help, saying they were shocked,
spotting our reckless rabbi suddenly
walking on water, then our stubborn ox—
yeah, Peter—trying to walk like he was He.
Flies swarm
over mulberries
mashed on the road,
purple pulp fermenting
in the heat beneath the tree’s
heavy shadow.
Rorschach blots.