"We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones"

–Oscar Wilde

Once you deprive me of my sex, you will have no further

difficulty. You can sew it up into a sack and throw it into

the river. If I insulted you–he said–I didn’t meant to.

Take the stone out of me. I promise not to cry blue murder.

I’ll let you eat the pulp, I pledge my word. The steel girder

forming the span of my life crosses your life in a single

arch. I can burn all bridges except that one. I have a tingle

in my fingertips and I can’t strike a match. A bit shrewder,

final thrust into your integrity, and I’ll be free like an old

prisoner who, after he completed his sentence, walks the nave

towards the altar. If you are out for scalps, then be bold

with my silver hair. I’d like to do the same, but I’m not brave

enough. Don’t ask me to kill you ever again, he said. OK,

you can make me a child, I said. I’m waiting like an open grave.

How the Land Lies

Always having an ear to the ground,

I can hear your train of thought, the sound

of jaws clenching. I can see your father

playing one snake off against another.

Do you still believe? Or you simply act the way

blackbirds and dogs act: warble after rain, retrieve

game in hopeless bondage to your master–

covering deep doubts with pieces of plaster.

Once I heard joy hitting your heart

on the bound. How quickly glories depart,

you said to me, how quickly triumphs fade.

Once I cut my ear on a sharp-edged blade

of grass. I wanted to see how the land lies,

to learn, find out where my river takes its rise.

Blue in Green

"It’s the white road westwards is the road I must tread

To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head"

–John Masefield

Green, green grass. Blue talk. Stems of verbs.

Crickets that sound like a burst of gunfire. Foxholes.

Plain language breaking fire. Medicinal herbs.

We are sailing into one another under bare poles.

Greenwood. Trees stripped naked by "blue beans." A sower

Sowing his plot of land with cannon shells. An aspen stand.

Riots in the vegetable kingdom. Poplars leaning over

In the wind, trembling with desire to join the string band.

Greenhearts consumed with lightning. A bolt

From the blue. Conceited coxcombs. Greenhorns

Advancing at a swinging trot. Birds starting to molt.

Snakes sloughing their skin on the greensward.

Honeyed words divided on the top of

The forked tongue. A Delphic sword.

The true blue jokes will always stain. I’ll take just one more drop

Of honeydew from your bluebell. Then comes a glottal stop.