After Maso, after Kahlo, after March 31

“the self—
its thousand consolations”
--Carole Maso

Try to keep it wordless. A woolen keepsake—horse or deer. She wound enough for four limbs and now I’m left to decide. It does not boil down.

The photographic record begins here. Missing: I am holding two mint ice cream cones away from an August noon; wearing my EKG remnants at a party just after turning blue; Brenda stalking grasses in a roadside meadow; Anti-Bush cars, curbs, lightposts; the Brooklyn Bridge; November and 2004.

Rain inside the loft the only source of light. They sneak back to the window for a kiss, projecting their shadows onto the performance.

Only a few items can remain active in this field. To choose which will be lost.

Dear Shannon,
Thank you for lending me your forest
and for the dream it has made.

**

How do we spend a rainy evening? Plunking piano, drawing doors of breath.

“…from the height

heat and light”

I like the dampness and the chill—in it things are growing
(on medians little green crowns)

How entry and exit are beyond reporting. The end of life hidden. We put it in another building. To have it done already. Maria’s baby overdue. Antoinette’s passing overdue. Kahlo again and again. Creeley yesterday only. Just nine months ago she was running the store. Gave me her luggage saying 'Kennedy was president then.'

“we dream for a moment of something whole”

the lake enough like a sea but the sound of trains
instead of boats.

**

“dark courtyards and order”

a black cat watches me read this, centers
herself above the page.

**
'you’ll have to explain your poetry to me sometime'

(so the job has come to enter the poem)

Try to dispel—'liar'. I leave and my world is restored. From everywhere else outside my body there are separate laws, victories and lore. There I am: a saint, a child, suspicious, fed kolacky, rumored pregnant.

Never before crossed days off the calendar like so many cans of peaches to be gotten from the store. I wish I were counting towards. I am tidying the threads of others, for others, things that rupture, things that infect, things to prevent: daylight savings time, a missing newspaper, memories of a dog being shot. Three hours later, still winded—'you’re calling me a liar.' The days made through.

“Each mark a door
Each word a boat.”

Four brown square packages ready to be mailed to say 'thank you and how soon can I visit you again?'

Memories gone. We must have thieves.