February Redux

I’m quiet in this now. Come back camouflaged
in powdery dreams of sleep, and mercy.
There is light, but from each thing, equally.
This is not the beginning. This is after-ash.

                             *

I reached then, as I still do now,
through the front door’s single pane
of shattered glass,
to twist the key and turn the lock –
step aside,
and take the ache of familiarity.

                             *

I do not bring my despair to her anymore,
will not talk the ruins:
broken cathedral, awful moonlight
making fractured geometries dance
like fire
in damp grass that chokes the stone.

                             *

Better it would be for me
if your madness were complete, if you spoke a language entirely
your own: complained of teacups in the rain that deny you
reading the morning paper. Better that, than the half-grasp
you keep, so that I still recognize you –
so that I cannot stop listening.

                             *

Now she sees the everywhere abuse of women.
Now she sees the everywhere carried burden of guilt unaddressed.
Now she sees the great wisdom of our dogs.
Now, in the most common: letters, names, eye-colour – she sees
the heels of synchronicity only a step ahead
and follows –
like an early-born sage of a sleeping city fueled
by the only-one-who-can-see-ness – the sun made
silver back of meaning, like leaves,
to the forest’s heart.
The coming darkness of which
I cry to imagine.

                             *

Mom, at least once a week
someone catches the sadness that seems
to be the natural expression of my face when it’s relaxed.

                             *

My heart is a fist making the action of a heart.
Son. Son. Some. Son.

                             *

I was mistaken –
while I calmly relayed the events
(madness, lighting the fire, why she hid in the forest)
hearing my own voice measured through my teeth
and saw, my own imagined resilience mirrored, in the gloved
policemen’s eyes. They brought her
mute and alert in the squad-car’s back-seat cage,
like balled lightning steadied by some foul trick waiting to
snap back into its proper existence –
while neighbours peered
from stoops and curtained windows,
I was mistaken –
for the good son.

                             *

Mother, on the edge of your dark swell
I sweat and pace.
Mom, on the edge of your dark
I make piles of paper tidy.

                             *

We say good-bye so slowly
to the people we used to be -
I am not so different,
the estrangement of my heart is still
all I really think about. You
mom? Do you still draw
that man’s face in your notebooks?
God I miss you, sitting at the kitchen table.