Trumpet

I admit it, my life, I was totally taken with you. I went along, 
laughing and smiling, or sometimes on the verge of tears, good god, 
groveling in the halls for your praise and recognition, 
your adoration. Meanwhile, bodies mean nothing, you said.

You think yours is so special, you laughed. The deserts are strewn 
with them. Graves, pits, rivers are jam-packed with bodies, you said. 
But the music was cathartic, I said, the glorious waves of sound.
Don’t you remember the jazz trumpeter in Paris,

how I rode behind him on his hog on the Champs Elysees 
in the middle of the night. I held on for dear life. Ha! 
Don’t let me stop you, you said. Apricot jam on fresh croissants 
and the little room, the bed with bright white sheets,

the window overlooking the park . . . 
Everyone’s Paris memory, you said, with a yawn.
I’m gonna play the trumpet ‘til I’m not here anymore, 
jazzman crooned.  Me, too, I said, whirling like a dervish in

that chambre de bonne, I want to live like that, with my heart 
swelling, my whole body alive and spinning and thrilling for you, 
my life. We held hands, we jumped up and down, we screamed . . . 
What more do you want from me, you said.

Beast of Burden

piled so high the legs buckle
hit with a thin stick whistled at
shouted at kicked with their heels

end me
on this earth with these humans
under a boiling sun in a world of rocks

remove the tower of wooden collar
studded with bells
from round my thick neck
so that removed
from all halters I may wander

let the dust blow me away
to long quiet roads
the clip clop of my feet
the only music I hear

or let me be gently lead like the old
or pull the wooden carts of babies
and nothing more

Lord of the Ass
lay me down
unencumbered in your green pastures
for which they incessantly pray

the air cooling and petting the bones of my ears
brushing my skull
the still waters washing out
my braying mouth

The Night Nurse

The night nurse turns me in my bed and changes 
the white sheets under me. They are wet, they are soiled,

and the night nurse washes my face and changes my gown. 
I am clean and refreshed because of the night nurse.

The night nurse comes to me with a pill in a tiny cup. 
I take the pill from her beautiful hands

and the night nurse takes away my pain so that I may sleep 
without plague of dream or fear of never waking.

The moon is out. The night nurse does not notice. 
The night nurse only watches me. I am life and death

to the night nurse. I am more important to the night nurse 
than the full pink moon over which the poets obsess.  

The night nurse comes flying low over me like a silent drone. 
The heart is beating peacefully like an upside-down bat,

the heart is racing like a serengheti cheetah. The heart 
must be listened to, beat by beat, minute by minute.

The night nurse knows my heart like no one else on earth.
The night nurse comes with a needle. I would cringe

with anyone else, but the night nurse slips the hypodermic 
under my skin and into the blue vein and I do not mind,

for I have given myself up. The night nurse 
needs my blood and I gladly give her my blood.

the dark tree, the cold sea

although I know you can never be found
although I know that from the highest height
you cannot be seen you are not hiding
from me or are you is it how you look now
or maybe how I look now all these years gone by
places seen people met not knowing at any time
who I was or how others saw me or did not see me
and how are you wherever you are if I write you a letter
I’ll get no answer if I cry out to you to come in my final
hour you will not come but I will still look for you

The Bluebird Motel

A pretty summer dress and your cancer hair 
growing back. You look like a movie star in those shades, 
like Jean Seberg in Breathless, in her pixie cut,

so fresh and unforgettable. (We need not fast forward 
to that sweltering car parked along The Champs Elysees, 
nor dwell upon the stench of personal brutalities

visited upon the suffering.) At this very moment, 
children are picking blueberries in Rhode Island. 
Slip some into your mouth; the taste is dark, rapt,  

and musky--a blue cantata, singing “You are healed,
strength renewed.” It’s really almost hard to believe. 
I can’t wait to go blueberry picking with you in August.

Vagabonds

You hear them 
breathing 
in your sleep 
in the woods
on dead end streets  

behind locked doors 
inside frantic scenes 
among the limping 
and the shaved

They are foraging for food 
boiling bones for soup
licking the plates

Before you speak again
build a little fire to sit around 
feel your face darken  
with an alien glow 
feel your mind go numb

I did not know how cold I was 
until the fire 
warmed my face and hands
I did not know I was hurt