AFTERSHOCK

I felt exactly like the wolf two weeks ago

Exactly primal

Predatory

Celebrational in my anger.

When the moon was glutted with blood

And hanging heavy over hills

It was there inside of me,

That furry other self that wanted out,

That cried for turning skin to pelt,

For racing hard on dark extended legs

To the far side of the trees

Where night was silver tipped

And still.

My tearing teeth

Sharp against my tongue,

Moistened with the need to wrench a throat,

Rip flesh from flesh from flesh,

To taste the sour sweetness of the kill.

And howl outside selected doors

That primal, earth bound scream

That gathers souls to grieve in crowds

And other souls to still in sleep

And listen.

THE PIETA AND THE SHOOTING OF A

YOUNG BLACK MAN

Dead

As black alabaster

Paling down

Boy--

You were a victim

Of this world,

This pass between the stars,

This universe,

This unrelenting life,

Flying off course,

A pale angel in your whiteness.

There was no point

To your journey,

No soft place,

No home, only

Hard pavement and hard friends

And keepers of the house.

Whose lap was there for you

To climb,

Whose shoulder

To rest against,

Whose tears

For your crucifixion,

Whose

Ancient guilt?

REVELATIONS

Water laps

Against a birchbark canoe.

A path opens unseen

Opens as is necessary

As a doorway

As a dream

As a stone.

Darting dragonflies

Snipped from taffeta

Break the surface

Water plants

Form a carpet

For her mind to walk across,

A movement

Enclosed in light

A birth canal.

A figure stands

On a ledge

Remote

Majestic.

"This is my grotto," he says.

She whispers, "This is my grotto."

"I guard this place for God!"

She whispers, "I am God."

TRANSFER

We buried our bodies

In a park close to Boston

Shed them there in the shade

And took a bus to Philadelphia

Dressed in other bones and skins

None of us recognized.

We stood on the sidewalk

In front of a deli

And an antique store window

Where an apple green bike

Was dusty

And hanging upside down

I knew why we were there

Wearing alien forms

Waiting for another bus

Transferring, I told the others

No reason to be afraid

We're going somewhere

I think I knew about

Would remember--

Should

But I left that memory

In the pocket of my other skin

In a park close to Boston

Where I once rode a green bike

Before it was hung upside down

In a window.

ABOUT ABSENCES

"She's gone," they said and went

Rushing off to grocery stores,

To parks along the waterfront.

She's gone.

And piles of dirty clothes barricade the laundry door

And dishes crest in china waves,

And pots stand centered on the stove,

She's gone.

"They saw her over in Abbotsville," they said,

"Calling strangers by stranger names,

Buying toys for other peoples' sons."

She's gone.

And dust accumulates in the hollows of old picture frames,

And over doors and arching windows,

And gathers in conventions under unmade poster beds.

She's gone.

She took her purse,

The blue one with the broken clasp,

And left her only reading glasses on the sink.

She's gone.