With holes in their necks
where they might have last kissed 
or nuzzled,
not one, but two deer, frozen,
gently surface 
from a dune on the shore.

Their empty eye sockets
gaze upon each other –
bridal veil of sand pulled back 
by the sea –
ritual minister of joy
and last rites.

Were they driven from their families,
a hunted Romeo and Juliet?
Did they come down to this water
like you and I
to drink and die together from the beauty 
of sunrise?

My black jacket flapping
in the wind,
I join ravens
picking at the choice bits.

I hear your voice –
snow owl, prophetic wife, 
your scorn stiff with salt
and rime.

The Sunday Muse

A white-tail deer moons me, 
disappears behind clouds,
and I'm moon walking in the stumble-light
  
Tripping on potholes of moonman craters 
and astronaut seas 
mirrored in puddles
  
It is way past bedtime for stoats and voles,
they watch silent horror films of hawks, 
shadows that flicker on silver screen leaves
  
The taste of time on my tongue, 
my gloves soaked and cold 
from this morning's sleet
  
I trace a line to the Pole star, 
but is my filmy world a negative, I have it all 
backwards? Am I headed South, not North?
  
I walk in light, old and yellow as sticky tape,
peeled from b&w photos 
off the bottom of the sea

The Sunday Muse

Wind
bites through my skin –
white-capped teeth
off winter seas.

Sand whips
and tastes of banishment.
Umbilical prisoner,
I walk bleak Eden.

Rain breaks covenant,
floods, waterboards
my knowledge 
of good and evil. 

The Sunday Muse

This will be about rope.		And so?
Turk’s Head knots
for eyes.		Just because you say “trefoil”
		doesn’t make it true.
Braided X’s.		Like eyes sewn shut. Whipstitch is it?
Coils and splices.		You are spliced to me, yes.
		Coils of smoke. I gave up my Marlboros when you were four.
You are bent in death.		Bend – to join one rope to another. What ties us?
		Our rigging of blood.
	Neither Neither	of us make correct use
of		of
	shroud. shroud.
		Why are these nautical, I was a cowgirl.
Arroyos to the Panhandle
look like the bottom of the sea.
You would have me		You would
	hoist hang
the solstice.		me with the sun.
Blocks and	sheaves to lift Swing me	from the crack of noon.
the dawn.
	Bight, cordage, knot, Bite, pull, thread, lash,
		tangle what is
	living dying	release
me
from you.
		You know you do not mean that.
	Braided Plied	into every strand.

The Sunday Muse

I guess just throw it
on the compost,
this dead swan at the bottom
of the road.
  
So much larger here at my feet –
a dead, feathered cello,
neck bent around to bow
a low moan.
  
It was never white, I can see
it was a living light,
bright silver now brushed with death
to mottled grey. 
  
Prisms of dew 
bead the wings –
tasting flights of fine oil
feeding mites.
  
No prayer 
here.
I roll like a dog
in dead words. 

The Sunday Muse

Winter rain splats like an egg 
in a cold frying pan.
This morning my mind 
is refrigerated, congealed,
a rictus of cheap margarine –
I scoop fat substitute thoughts
with a spatula. They splat in the pan too,
alongside the egg.

Isn't there meant to be
an order to things? Heat 
first, then butter, then egg?
Kitchen mullions rattle
as the Nor'easter tests their strength.
The vacant house across the way –
Is this the year the windows break?
Will it give up the ghost
in a final shiver of broken glass?

Outside in the storm, as with the world,
birds have abandoned flight.
No flying south to depilate winter,
the bikini waxing of dreams –
no tweezing the snow moustache
from elderly Florida swans.
No way to take the hair 
off it all.

You toss me a frozen bagel and laugh –
hardtack or life buoy 
for a morning's survival, 
my shipwrecked words 
wash ashore this deserted island.
The rain slants, cants,
through these old portholes. 

The Sunday Muse

A poem plunged into the sea	I hear you singing
I row to where the words rise	The Water is Wide
moil, roil
in columns	lost in time, escarpments, translation from the Malagasy
The return of the Sargasso Comet
The Salt Meteor	It was hard to tap the sky
	and break through clouds
	quarried of marble
Are your tatters of seaweed
meant for wings?	I am tired of sinking ships and sailors
	I fly the slick and rope of sorrow
And so	And so
Were you ever Icarus?	I’m sorry, no
And so	And so
I return to shore	Your oars are oak and stripling ash
	The forest has no place at sea
I press the ore blades across my chest	I will bring the lightning
Restart my heart	One hundred hundred times
	For this I love you

The Sunday Muse