Ashes

 
I thought that birds were Gods, small like me— 
but confident in what they knew they could do. I never
wanted to be a dusty home-cawing rook. You asked me
once which one I could become. You had in mind
Briar Rose. You never were one to notice small miracles,
the soot on my forehead when you kissed me,
the burned cinders I play with, the bitter residue.
I’ll write you back tonight, then maybe never again.
 
The stutterer who owned the tree farm now
sells Christmas wreaths from a half-acre his rich cousin rents.
I pricked my finger on the wild rose bush you dug
up and dragged to my house while he slept off a drunk.
Nothing comes without a price you told me. I tore
my fingers across the sides of those cat-claw roses
to conjure you back, just like you threatened I would.
The chanting in my head couldn’t fill the plate
 
at our plain wooden table. Morning doves pick
at the bloody-tipped seeds I offer up again and again.
I wait for them to sip my blood, to herald your return.
My fingers are raw but as you warned they are not scarlet
angels. Even the cardinals have fled and abandoned us
for Mexico.  Tonight I will give us another chance.
I look for a sign of fiery shadow-birds among the cloistered
branches. I remember how you burst into Nessun Dorma
 
when you wanted to be holy, a snatch of  Hallelujah
to awaken our dead with an offering of the every-day.
  
 
 
 
 
Christmas Tree
         Like a bird that flew, tangled up in blue. -Bob Dylan
  
A garland of poppies grow there— 
The angry dead walk on the air.
I fear for my chest, my wizened left breast,
among them, unclothed will they care?
 
1.
 
Start with her hair. No longer platinum, she is grey
as a soldier’s eyes. She has seen so many angels,
the stones of France, poppies of the brave and not so,
 
a thin-red line where her breast used to be.  I drape
a cobweb of silver and black threads, a fierce weasel
pelt to honor all her battles.  Her breasts hadn’t been
 
ornaments or an affectation, they were snarling
forest-myths that kept her safe those years, kept her
alive and angry until now.  I am carefully choosing
 
her Christmas tree clothes. She will join the rest of them,
she lied with spirits her entire life, kept quiet through all
their battles and now wrapped in her garland
 
of felt poppies, I lift her arms. Are her hands clenched
into fists or is it the dead who breathes her stiff?  I decorate
her like an India purse, wild mirrors, calming blue stars,
 
seeded beads: she was important to the trees
in the forest, a gatherer of silver-capped acorns, golden
windfall apples. This strange death, I want to change
 
it.  She is the apple I nibble and sniff, lonely for decay.
She ignores my wishes like she has done her whole life.
She is the hoofed forest that walks away. 
 
2.
 
Angels don’t smile we’ve been told, except the smiling
angels of France. Maybe the croissants and hot chocolate, maybe
 
the bombs that didn’t wipe away their faces. If they flew,
they flew to forest trees that sway under
 
the weight of titmice. Our front porch tree is thick
with pine siskins; they take shelter in the silver needles.
 
I met a woman who covered her gra-mere’s feet with robins,
one for each fugitive angel. They sang her to sleep
 
as she nodded by the fire. They sang her to sleep
and they coaxed worms to her; they planted her feet
 
in deep moss. There in green my love goes riding, slippered
sleep was never softer, into a silver dawn.