flowering black for herself in the desert. 

And he asks her- 
he asks O'Keeffe, expert in doorways 
and illusionary doorways- 

"Which way to the bus stop?" 

And her eyes are a mirage
of home abandoned, 
(but he never had a home he liked.) 

She asks him, 
"what can you give?" 
"a feather, never flown, pocketed 
impossibilities 
is all I carry." 

"Lucky, eh?" 

And her eyes are a mirage 
of orange water. 

So, then she asks him, 
"where are you going?"
"I hear the water of life runs downhill,
I am going to the valleys." 

"Chasing, eh?" 
And she points with her paintbrush 
to the sinking sun. 

"The bus stop is that mirage." 

And never tiring he trudges on his way. 

if a wise friend tiptoes out 
like a melody leaves the mind 

break the ceiling with your pillowthighs 
and rain wine-

quick, grab a cup! 
you're thirsty like a liar 
drink your good luck! 

they wisely have shown you where 
to gamble your roots- 
and not on them! 

once again there's nothing ahead. 
don't look for the future
open us
nowly instead. 

now i won't speak more of R, of us;
language cannot touch that touch. 

my most worst habit is excess. 
when i drink, i drink too much, 
and then some more. 
when i smoke, same thing. 

i invite an exciting stranger, 
Forgetfulness, 
to my lips. 
she beheads me 
but lets me keep my head. 

so i go home so that i might 
offer my head to the Moon. 

the Moon kisses my forehead
she puts a secret inside. 

Moon, how do you stand it? 
bound to the Earth, 
yet you can come no closer. 

and the Moon spins her yellow skirts. 
you mean 
                         like this?
separation is what allows me 
                        to exist! 

how shortsighted is your fear of death, 
that you don't enjoy the spinning days? 

then i vomited. 

to taste
the ear, the tongue's one customer* 
to taste 

but lightly, not insistent, insists
the goddess strange astride solid hips 
astride a band of five hundred horses amassed 

at a river too wild to cross 
my love-madness 
water insistent. I feed it to you

I do not ask to be asked. bring your calamity hair 
bring your sensible tears 
bring your ropes of body and terror 

be souls with me. everybody is within me
already. 
I am the field on which we meet 
empty. plenty. I feed it to you 

* Footnote- Rumi said this first, 780 years ago. (give or take.) “A tongue has one customer, the ear.” Quote is pulled from Rumi’s poem The Reed Flute’s Song, as translated by Coleman Barks.

chips of light 
fall from beaks of birds 
                                       beadyburp
when the winds fail to blow
do birds plead, 
do they mourn? 

no. be that wide, 
wide as wind above the earth. 

wide as water 
under doors 
surrender course 
seep where you are. 

you are 
humming 
empty 
like a grapeseed 
swells from light. 

my soul settles 
under your skin. 
standing still, we spin 
bright 
midnights 
around us, 
your curly hair. 

who is not bewildered? 
who cares! 

let's be wind now 
wailing, finish this poem 
in the dark. 

how did you summon me
from blood 
and bedsheet equations 

and how did you pull me 
like teeth from your budgeted mouth?

you are highly improbable. 

is that why you're so easy to hate? 

I need to become truth 
and see farther, 
so that you might see. 

you have another truth 
you don't need to see. 
when will I understand you? 

I was not born of a virgin 
and now my sheets are stained, too. 
do you recognize the blood between my hairs, 
eyeblack and red and 
does it bend like snakes for you? 

did you invoke me with a whistle 
soft as wood rots, and did you hear them stop 
just now, the solemn footsteps behind us? 
who is tracking us, down through the centuries? 

or is that me, and I am you? 

bleary in the mid-morning. 

people on the phone 
shape love
outside my ears 
like a ball you make by throwing

from your chest. from pomegranate fogs
other headaches 
catch up and hijack the dreams. 
no thought will rescue me 

and no thought worth rescuing 
what Ego has brought me: 
magpie pity, vain as silver 
mirrors. i need company. 

no yellow like yellow never 
corned upon

these shoulder hills patient 
to unfold meander 
to the car like cows and 
lick us, 
be wet, look: 
rockabye palest and 
gentlest yellow 

hills know we will never 
stop to love them again 
and indeed we are hardly stopping now. 

shoulder hills euthanized
with asphalt-blanket, 
so we take it, split to sea, 
pretending hills that open so easy
as rest reminisced as dream
where we still have power.