NAMING DUSK IN DEAD LANGUAGES
Tusin is the dusk
of an April’s lengthening day,
when woods glow blue
and hope probes shadows.
Dosan is dusk in June
musky with honeysuckle,
when moths circle the flames
of our convivial candles.
Dusmen, October’s dusk,
when ripeness leads to rot
among crisp leaves
and skeletons are clothed in mist.
Fuscus, December dusk,
when there is no twilight
and day’s rain
becomes night’s rain.
But fear of the dusk,
that darker part of twilight
when every day is the same day
again and again and again?
It has no name.
WIFE OF A SEA GOD
My mother never wept
or turned to wave once she had left.
After a brief peck on my cheek
she’d flex her back.
She had this need to cut
the cord between us
sever trapping weeds
extract herself and wrest strong tides
to ride the ocean to their rocky island place,
attach her body, limpet-like, to his.
She even relished being mauled
by his crab claws.
MEETING YOU
April – Easter holidays –
heavy snow, enough
to smother currant bushes.
On the fell
daffs up to their necks
larches arching down
the track feet deep,
my footprints disappearing
scarily as I looked back
wondering whether to go on –
yet no amount of snow
could stop me now.
I trusted that you’d come, but
in the white-reflected light
inside the empty barn, shaking
snowflakes off my coat
I trembled at my madness
and at yours, until
through the open door
your breath smoked –
your padded bulk, exultant.
I pressed my cheek
in your wet beard.
We broke dark chocolate
spoke in whispers –
as if our urgent words
might start an avalanche
up on the mountainside.
And then your gift –
cupped in my hands,
an orchid that displayed
in column and labellum, all
the moist heat of forest warmth.
DARK GLASS
On my ninetieth birthday
I will celebrate wiseacre status
by being enigmatically silent.
I will mask my sagging face
with thick lipstick and powder,
pluck, then pencil my eyebrows,
leer, offer you a presentiment.
I will listen to Allegri’s Miserere
that high C lost to deafness
but will hear instead, inside my head
the insinuating whispers of tinnitus.
I will fail to cut through my cake
and blow out the candles
but will shower the icing with spit.
I will not know what to wish for.
I will smell to high heaven
of Dolce et Gabbana,
laugh until I wee, choke,
and sneeze peppery food into your lap.
I will celebrate by jiving,
will dislocate my new hip
pass out in your arms
and require you to wrench it back.
In Scrabble I will miss-spell
three-letter words and fabricate
others. If you challenge me,
I will toss the board into the air.
I will be arrested for looking at porn
on the world-wide web, enjoy
accusations of indecency,
be let out on compassionate grounds
I will inadvertently send all my files
to the recycle bin
click on yes.
I will ask where my life has gone.
I will plan my funeral but
will forget significant poems
and the heart-churning music
I want you to remember me by.
When my ninetieth birthday is over
I will no longer know you.
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