Shining blue marble
slung at a target.
Lit with holes, it's the universe
on the other side that compels our aim.
The rain in the library woke you up.
If you could get back to nowhere.
The smell of glue, bindings, gasoline and lilacs.
In eleven minutes
the sun does handsprings
wears hairspray.
Like the little girls say: back to you.
A mirror in a Greek diner
as a vortex becomes one gesture:
origami, kabuki and karaoke.
Three graces compel the shadows to fill
in the sequential jolts, which are transactions
binding adulation, like a green sandal
that got trashed, somehow, in the night,
found like a discarded signal
empty of direction.
The path, hypnotized light,
strewn articles of faith.

                                                                    for Lorna Smedman

a cooked red berry appears in a hand
which the black smoke of thought
formed escaping the book in to the fire.
The triangular manta ray face
of our cousin who wears a gown
composed of a saint's ashy hair plus
the hide of a horse. Around 1:00 a.m.,
the moon is boiled wholly alive
and simmers now in our kitchen
overflows as the milk
in a big black pan which fell in a drawer
and woke up as pearls you forgot you
had until you emptied an old envelope:
your mother's prom pearls
all mixed up with everything
that you had meant to sort
and by sorting, what is meant is
to paint it.

She comes for a visit up the wooden stairs
Past the hermaphroditic Mary statue
Red plastic roses at her feet.
We look at the black clay vessel, handle broken.
We look at the wine from Provence
Maroon as a quieting volcano.
We look at the floor coming apart in segments.
We see some crap
 floating around in the sky.
Talk about old houses we've passed through.
What remains, a mark
on our skin, intangible
As a scream you once heard
Shaped like a ragged echoing bell
Whispery as lace with
Holes bitten through.