In the shuttered stillness
of closets,
clean sheets, long married,
sweeten, 
towels for the brow 
of an anguished child coolly sleep.

In the dark decorum
of cupboards,
bowls from which to spoonfeed 
the sick mutely shine,  
cups to be lifted to trembling lips
grow calm.

Behind the deepening panes of houses,
kindled bodies
fill the cup
and rinse the bowl,
wash the linens
and make the bed.

They are luminous, flickering,
and they lie down in it,
they begin again.

Little mittens sewn
over my knuckles, my nails,
my thoughts tied close
against my body
like a baby's legs
inside his drawstring gown:

together we sink
to the bottom of dark water

where my phantom arms
wreathe out so thin
like smoke
like cloudy ink.

My eyes clenched like his fists
are slits
are seamless.

Yet in the terrible world
the closed eyes of creatures move:
the elephant		the mole
the opossum		hanging from his tree.

is like waiting for your life

when you've lived so long
from yourself you look
for your name in the white
glare of the noonday street
where the doors all fuse
into light.

You must ease
into the dark at the end
of the atoning fast, like your own 
shy guest at the door
of the New Year, laden 
with honeycakes, and wine,
and cascades of grapes,

as if you forgave
yourself

like women in the last
slow stretches of exercise class,
taking themselves into their own
tender hands, caressing
the knees they press 
to their chests, learning
to love the weight
of their laboring flesh.

You wait in the street,
the wind suddenly stops,
clouds move across the moon
to an absence of music.

And once, and again,                            
the eyes of the universe            
darken with kindness
toward you, like cats’ eyes    
purring closed, like embers shifting
and settling, like someone
opening and closing after you
the warm yellow door
of her house.