I can't think of you without a high bright sound
like the rim of glass spun with music under
your finger- I can't think of you without a sweet
bright light that makes morning of my eyes.
Bright light that makes morning of my eyes
hollows out the reeds in your wrists-- your bones
are veins that hold honey, old bee-stings, honeycomb cells.
I can't think of you now without a wildflower-bright under
my bones-- my bones dance and lilt with the coloured light,
the tumbled-down laugh I get when I think of how
the old days are rusting in the long grass.
The old days are rusting in the long grass.
I am balanced on the fence, and when I waver you catch me.
And I can't think of the bones in your hand-- how they move under your skin,
how they are strong and bright and hold the light like September fields,
how they close like a sun-white crab to make me straight--
I can't think of the bones in your hand without a
hum as long and bright as the summer.
Hum as long and bright as the summer;
your voice pulses like a Greek seaside town,
the smell of sage; your tuneless happy drowns all sound.
I stand up straight inside myself; my sight goes double and you are
everywhere now. I squint at you like a girl
who's lost her glasses, laughing as I
feel around for them helplessly in the long grass.
bright light
Fillevox
Does it frighten you when I speak? Intricacy
in the shape of leaf-skeletons, the dry skin on
my lips, the pitch of my voice so high above
yours-- does it make you shiver to hear me?
My voice is sweet like a D.H. Lawrence fig,
it is round with the promise of my womb,
it is downswung like a child on a swing as I
make empty promises, laugh at you from
behind my hair. The calendar marks off days
the size of an eggcup; I fill them quickly with
the langour in my limbs, the way I can't make up
my mind. I talk to you in riddles: a peach, a pomegranate,
a meddler, a service tree.
And I am milk and you are cereal.
And I am bread; I am salt; I am
a paper you write on. We are
like all things that come in pairs--
we stir into each other at times like tea.
We query each other in furious stage-whispers.
Your hand looks knobby and awkward
next to mine.
Do you look down suddenly when you hear
my honey-mustard throating? What red-throated
hummingbirds know as they duck their needle-mouths
into the pitchers of flowers is what you still
have left to learn. There is not another like me
across five continents.