MIDSUMMER SESTINA

The lover leaps up at the Moon in play,

but falls back to the ground, laughing, I didn’t mean it Moon

and Earth. The Moon sits still as a cat

satiated, but never truly still at all.

Wind whispers yesterday through black trees,

in another language.

Later Kathleen drew with her hands the face of the Moon.

Her hands leftover from petting the cat,

who had swallowed the perfect globe—swallowed us all.

Kathleen washed her hands on the trees,

and the Moon read her own face in another language.

Kathleen was just playing.

I loved you like a cat

loves her tiny brood, all

wound up under fairy-trees.

I love you in cat language.

We played another kind of playing,

under friendly Moons.

Striking Midnight can’t catch us all:

not the smallest schools of fish, not remember’s trees,

not the smallest family in the last corner of the world, or their secret language,

not the smallest vocalist, not the smallest play.

Mother Midnight can’t touch the face of the Moon,

after all, who makes her own fate like a cat.

Don’t forget to ask the trees.

You’ll remember woody language.

Only they can say who played

the night of the Spider New Moon,

when some lost soul cried like a cat,

and we couldn’t get home at all.

We met at the beginning of language.

I saw your mouth and wanted to play,

and we did play, gasping on milk of the Moon.

Our house was made from the belly of willing cats.

So call off your war against all,

and let’s return to the trees.

Lover, come back to Moon language;

come let us play like cats;
please stop forgetting that we were all once trees.

8080808080808080808080808080808080808080808080808080808080808080aaaaaahhhhhhhh

I walked into the kitchen to get you, I walked into the kitchen to feel free, I walked into the kitchen with fear wrapped around me. I said this word in my mouth: it’s metal, it’s a truck, it’s a toy. I want to peel it from my mouth and place it in your palm. I want to give it away. I remembered something back from four years ago when it was hot like it’s supposed to be here in June at the edge of Ohio. Something in the way the trees shivered with cool desire. With us. And we breathed. I followed you out of the kitchen, still not quite there. Unveil your heart’s heat, I said, to feel free, cold metal fear fall from me/us, fall clanging to the floor. Stomp it out. White fire. Quit the rides that aren’t cheap. Take time out of shadows. Feel me. Remember over and over again that first comes love, then fear, then love again. Even past the madman tears in the fabric, past the vast cruelty: Love is (though often hiding within the whispering grip of maya). Love is the Alpha, the Omega; Love is the (sweet none) Synthesis.

CALL IT

If it’s rugged could you call it. A bird cage. The sun beat like it wasn’t new. The dusty hawks stood still. Red-Tailed. With shoulders. Fat bee and bee things kicked up in our ears and (under our skirts). The sun shocked our skin that was and wasn’t new. Secret corners bore mammals with backs curled up escape. At last responsibility—vanquished. Vanished. Banished mammals with useless stink glands. Feathering. Drugged on rugged cage. I held my daughter at angles—telling her animal names. Pulling her close from dusty stone eyes. Hawks and turkeys. Tiny waterfall so ornamental by rugged hawk cages. The animals turn to the wall and rest, relieved. At last, the animals say,—Nature vanquished.