THE SUN ALSO SETS

Without a bedtime story or a lullabye
the evening’s blush sinks to a deeper red
then slips into a slit between the earth and sky
leaving our goodbyes lingering, unsaid.

I do not want to go, or let you go.
I want to dare this ending, call its bluff,
delay our parting with a sudden overflow
of words—too many and yet not enough–

while you, my dearest one, would choose
blunt disappearance, the mute way
to stanch an agony—those deeper blues
along the skyline fire—as if to say

the sun rises, the sun also sets.
So let it set. Let us let it. Let’s.
.
.
THE SUN ALSO SETS

EQUINOX

The toad shook off two snowy
eyebrows with a sudden twitch.
Mud shivered in the blowy
balm, rippled the juicy ditch.
Toad popped its eyes awake,
tapped by a warm green witch
and listened for the snake
between the lines, between
the woods and the lip of the lake.

The snake wiped itself clean
against a brand new blade
of grass, and practiced looking mean.
Scales, skin newly-made,
wet with excitement and tight
on the courage of the unafraid,
tongue flapping a small red kite,
snake kept its body low
in wait, and saved its bite.

The toad, heavy and slow
with eggs, had to cross the line
between new waters and old snow.

How could a snake pine
sentimentally for what
its gut demanded by design?

Snake brain cracked like a nut.
Coiled venom, raging spit
leapt from the rut
and took the toad, near all of it
into the mouth.  But deep
the toad moan would not fit
nor drift to easy sleep
down in the snake.  It caught high
in the maw, swimming to keep

alive.  The monster that followed
was dreadful to see, as it tried
to get into, get out of, the hollow–

a birth in reverse, blaming the sky
for being unable to swallow
for being unable to die.

FUTURE PERFECT

We did not plan
aloud or far ahead
knowing how the envy of the gods
(as that of man) is
easily aroused.  We dreaded
ruining our odds.

We did, however, dream
asleep, awake
of moving on to something more–
from milk to cream
dry bread to honey cake
an after better than before.

We meant more life
just down the road.

Until the universe arranged
an otherwise, a knife
to heart, one morning to explode.
You died, and all was changed.

Instead of dreaming now
alone I let life simply be
the in and out of breath.

I greet its beauty, but allow
no wishful thought, no certainty

except, of course, for death.

PRAYER FOR MY LEFT LEG

There are those who believe the air
passing into and out of the mind–
air that’s been everywhere–
can happen to heal.
Some say this air is God.

Others believe in water
or fire, or earth.  Still others
in powders or oils from plants,
in electronic tides, or laboratory
numbers floating in the blood.

Listening to late-night radio
I hear a healer from China
tell his invisible audience how
to speak to what ails:  tell it
you love it, he said.

“I love you,” I told
my leg in the dark,
“I love you, I love you,”
rubbing the eversore muscles,
the knee that unceasingly aches.

Not being Chinese, perhaps I
should have stuck with “Go
and sin no more.”  Maybe
pain has made me insincere,
a non-believer in the goodness

of the universe.  My leg
did not believe me.  Still doesn’t.
Says salvation for a person of
my ways may be to have to limp
unto the last footstep of my days.