The Heat of Decay

The spider outside my kitchen door
weaves her silver threats again
between the new shoots of green
that pretend to be spring,
a new start,
gathering dew on these delicate strands
of belief in something I can’t see with my eyes
but know in the tremors that arrive
from the earth in my feet
and explore their way,
like voyagers in the stream of my blood
and climb into my bones—
knees and knuckles bruised
with so much struggle to rise—
make the way out of the trees
into a clearing where light and open air
might bring relief from the pain.

If I bend down to where my eyes are level
with the translucent body
and eight legs dancing in the sun,
I can see the craft of fear take shape.

She is a Master--
using her body to survive
even when her work is destroyed
by the wind or inconsiderate trappings
of words like death. She knows what to do
at these endings and is not afraid
to quickly move in,
wrap the unsightly shell of disappointment
into a neat package,
and move on to the necessary
repair and beauty.

How can anyone blame her for trying
to catch the stars when she lives
so close to the heat of decay
in the stitches of her home?

Traveler Finds the Face of a Stranger

I never travel these days.
My life list of places to go
has stalled in Italy, Montreal, or Paris
and I wonder if I will ever get to China or Brazil.
Even New York seems impossible.

I am desperate for a long summer
in a small, sturdy house on the shores of any ocean
where I sweep sand from the stoop,
my bare feet constantly covered with the dust of the sea—
my face freckled with the saltiness of air meant to heal anything.

How could I have known
that the charm of the myth of you
would fade from blue sky
into a prison of endless grey days?
This rain melts away any hope
and puts me to sleep just to deliver me
from the constant tapping of guilt at my window.

On the horizon I imagine a break in the clouds
above the churning waves of this shame.
I escape into the arms of painted skin
and eyes flecked with fire and gold.
Here I will take in every drop of ocean
like laughter and the thirst of sailors lost at sea.

I will travel to that island,
if only for a little while—
a tourist stumbling upon a remote
and beautiful voice up a path,
into the door of welcome
where the table cloth is red,
the forget-me-nots are fresh,
and the bed
is warm
and soft
and kind.

Ritual of the Spirit

Most nights the spirit that lives
in the cathedral cavern of my chest
wanders toward the echoing ritual grounds
following the breath to the bodies and bones
left alone to shine white under the moon
next to marble and cold stone.

She has carefully tethered herself to my heart
with a fine thread of metal stretched thin
with trust and beauty so that she might find her way
back to this place of blood
if tomorrow she must still search for love.

The nights can be dark and so quiet when she slips away
into the stars past the windows of my sad silent chamber.
I have seen her go, dancing toward the dead,
to practice the rituals of love again and again like a child
learning to trace letters into words of poetry,
or anger learning to scream into nothingness,
or like the heart opening like the pupil of the eye will do
to adjust to the lack of light—
letting in the meager offering
as if it were nearly midnight
on the longest day of the year.

She opens her arms to the breathless, the hopeless,
and welcomes them into her bed, warmed by fires that will not die
and each night burn as sacrifice to the most holy
and tender acts of unconditional desire.