(fragment)

back home, the wind is spreading chemical flames,
twenty miles charred, more as dad drives home from work.
don't take the parkway, it's a disaster coming.

but i am far away, full of fancies that keep me
distant. turned away, i say no to the grainy image
on my screen. hello mom, how are you today?
i say no, i say nothing, i call out the imaginary names
before i catch myself, take myself out
of the blinding sweetness of strangers, put myself to bed.

all i can say is the prayer of the damned:
i am sorry, so sorry
still, years later.
forgive me, forgive me. forgive me.

*written as the ending of the poem that would later, after edits, become "meditation". the poem was originally titled "on unpacking after a long trip".

I Am Not the Good Doll

fish up an old rag from the lake, and wring her
neck before setting off again in your canoe, paddling
towards the deeper end, opening behind the turn,

until the island comes at you with the force
of suns, the vigor of bursts of helium flying
away from the reservoirs saved
for our last remaining balloons. careful

not to break your fingers trying to push away
back into the thick water, molasses thick with
algae and other green things: your green days

still surging forward. lie under the beads that can
pass for stars on a night saturated with
sweat and wine, hold the blood back, close your veins
(though not before the night knife slips in by mistake,
makes a mark that will, in five days,
shimmer with barely healed luminescence, a thin shaft

of light on your skin). i am not

the good doll, whose smile is reticent, demure,
forever. shafts of light mark my skin, and i don't like being touched.
i have tried to evaporate myself, down to a
hologram. if you look at me one way i will lie with you.
if you look at me another, i will not.

*edited version. originally written on may 4th, 2007.

Belladonna

remember? how we used to pick
the belladonna berries –

the slick oily black of the skins made
you whisper secrets of the night that you
thought you learned from your sisters.

just a tiny shrub, that's all, and
one that could have grown eggplants, a burst
of rich velveteen voluptuousness, curves like
hips, or red berries, juicy under their
thin skin, but still bitter when you brought your fingers,
dyed with the spilled wholesomeness of a perfectly sealed
space, to your mouth. or, nothing at all, just leaves –

even if there was nothing, we still would have played, dug up
worms in the heat, followed the snails after the rain,
plucked leaves for the

he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not because we didn't
have daisies. we still would have sat on that wall, not caring
about the scrapes on our knees that we'd get when we
hopped down for dinner.

but i remember the careful way we used to touch the belladonnas,
like nuns rolling prayer beads in their hands, reverence
for a power greater than you, that is not you, that can
cut you down in a second, just as soon as the skin breaks.
i remember the fear, and the endless
stepping up to the line to ask, so?

you're grown up now, you can order oysters and have
two glasses of wine with dinner. you think you know the touches of
the night you used to talk about, you think you can use them:
at midnight, then again at six, then again at noon -
(that's how you know you know them, because they no longer
belong just to the night).

*edited version. originally written on april 24th.