Neither on spring mornings when she said  
winged pipers announce the sun
with tambourine trills and whistles,
nor in winter when she said 
the hoot owl calls black-clad heaven
come, swaddle the ghost-faced moon;
nor in autumn when she said 
leaves skitter laughing 
from the wind’s frustrated grasp, 
nor late in summer when she said  
cicadas hide their faces 
and chant sorry sorry, sorry sorry—
never did a moment grab her 
and not squeeze out dollops of dip.
Baby tulips became tiny radar towers,
and an icicle the mad gutter’s drool,
and chimney smoke exhaust from an idling hearse,
and sprinklers mothers shushing their lawns, 
until the galvanized pail by the pump 
and the ax, blade sunk in the block—
all things in themselves—
(she licked her lips) disappeared
under globs of semantic ambiguity.
 
I have dreamed of her slapping away
my one clapping hand 
and her favorite lovers 
hauling her off in her palanquin; 
then I wake and hear her 
slurp-slurping herself, and call her again
to the uncertain mystery we rise in and set in,
as if she could make thunder crack 
in a sky shining clear and blue, 
as if she were bent to listen.

In the yard the white chickens tuck-tuck.
                        

When skin crepes, and gravity bends your skeleton,
When your neck and knees crack like tired castanets,
When your toe nails harden into adobe shards, uncuttable,  
Accept the gifts the mind in itself gets.
 
His great design tossed you ashore once, like jetsam;
When He reclaims you, broken piece by withered part
You get to watch yourself wade into an ocean of love— 
Let gratitude wash over your old heart.
 
The baby that never giggled before its bulged eyes shut—
The kid in his pickup when the big rig’s tire blew—
The father in a heap beside the treadmill’s turning belt—
In a trice, if he could, would envy you.

When mind-mice steal from your trivia stockpile, 
And printed directions hurt, like too small slip-on shoes,
And the TV remote turns into a dead cordless phone, 
Opt for joy—bless each fresh violet bruise.