Going Home


Going home, your eyes close
as you bounce along the rutted road
visiting a landscape you have made
from fragments— 

the face of that cow by the fence,
the neon sign on the all-night diner
set against a black wall of pine,

or a parlor filled with voices
you thought you had lost,
a room through which a stream
from your childhood 
is mysteriously flowing,

and you step into the current
on the same flat rocks as always,
only their moss grown thicker
over the years.




 
Sometimes the Snow


Sometimes the snow drags
across the sleeping fields
like an old cloak
eaten through by moths,

like your face in the dark,
its patchwork light
a caul for the skull.

Sometimes the snow shrouds
the trees, taking its time
as it wraps each branch
in the same white vapor
that cooled the molten Earth.

They say to lie down
in that seamless embrace
is a good way to die,

and on the way, remember                
those long ago angels you summoned,
the map your small arms made
becoming wings,

the path your legs made
that would lead you home.





The Barn


The barn is empty.

Look, that black hole 
is where the animals 
used to be,

their warm breath pumping 
the pink sacs of their lungs
until the air was wet,

and the ripeness of manure
falling like a harvest
around their sturdy feet.

The barn is so empty 
you can see clean through it
and out the other side.

Shadows live in there now,
and echoes, trying to find
their source. 

I guess there’s nothing
we can do about it.
The barn is empty.

Sleep in there one night
and you will feel the harsh rasp
of dead tongues, 

laying their braille
on the planes of your face.

-all three poems are from Buried in the Sky (La Alameda Press, 2001)