Commonwealth Poems

1

place paper
on each grave:
and the nippled carvings
walking out of them
halfway

place paper on each grain
let the rattling
never begin

2

the left-handed world
leapt out of me
in a coffee accident:
I looked up & saw

2 scary girls
peering out of
the dark, their hands
like weird bread.

3

the cats play with what's left of me
after the notebook
has been torn, deep in my spine
with their allergenic claws

the sprinklers wait
on the ceiling to fling
cold rice on our whole
iron lives.

4

thrust skies
into a paw, part
the fur, touch the rough
hand-shaped
undergrowth of the last brains.

5

splay my offender

6

put his short throat on a long stick

7

those who ignore these blues
do so at their peril.

8

stuff cities
with rag people
rice paper
and old books
and older books

pseudo-mexican restaurants
ground floor level
fill with newspaper
and salt shakers

and old shoes
and older shoes

9

behold, I saw
columns of coral
carved from reef on reef
in the headlights
in the headlights
illumined, with no second sky

10

leda's pink icecones
call to me over the whole summer
come to me burning a wide season
through the strangely shaped years
come to me over the whole summer
in white dress making
hair look darker
in cemetery damp, dear

shoes dyed red
by fermented clay
in our twin canyons, leda
white