Moonstruck

I never understood
those whose hearts
were so tightly closed
that not one beam of moonlight
would ever find its way inside.

Tonight, on the full moon closest to Easter,
I am struck silent by her beauty
and how she moves these tides
within my salty blood—
daring me to cast out to sea, find the depths
with my hands, and dive
under the waves with no fear of loss.

I am touched in the old ways of madness
that would have me dancing
under this blue-white light
with the seeds of peas in one hand
and the ripe eyes of potatoes in the other—
unconscious of the need to plant
this early longing in the ground—
penetrated with magic
that disappears on the horizon at dawn—
exchanging absolute love
for the security of blindness
brought on by too much.

Abundance is the guard at the gate
where I would escape if only I had the courage
to say the words
goodbye.

In this place of violet desperation
I call your name into the shadows of the woods
near my dooryard and disappear,
as if a shooting star,
alone and into the darkness
of my own small bed
warm near the fire—
cinders swept away
like whispers not meant to be heard,
but instead, felt in the wet fingertips
on the smoothest skin
of a woman’s body.

I scoop you up—
You, just like star dust,
and go quietly
toward the row of seedlings
to bless them
with all that love
the sky can’t help
but rain down on everything
alive with tears
infused with promise.

Learning Chinese

I carve
the words
out of bamboo—
a language I never knew
in the maple or pine
of Lake Itasca
or the small stones stacked
near the Mississippi in Minnesota.

Painting between the lines
of French and Norwegian
I see the lotus
on the tongue of a man
who is learning Chinese
on the side of the road
less taken in New Hampshire
in the white places
of his bones
drying in the spaces between love
and desire.

I touch my lips to his
trying to taste
the garlic
and the calm
of knowing what tomorrow
will offer to her friend
Truth and Hope.

The Land of Lost Things

These early days of spring
I rummage through my bags
far too often looking for lost things—

keys attached to a rubber chicken
and sanity, the cell phone ringing
with children expecting me to pick up,
hair clips to arrange out of control curls
into something suitable for work,
change for the meter,
pens—blue and black. . .
glasses—Granny and Librarian Black,
fruit flavored gum, eye liner, lip stick—Dreamy Pink
business cards with one of my jobs and gold seal, tampons.

Sometimes, in frustration,
I dump the contents
onto the seat of my car
or onto the floor of my office,
shuffling everything into order
by force to avoid a rage
or embarrassment in public
when losing my cool
is unacceptable.

The truth is
I’ve lost it already—
lost the place where my breath and my head
meet for tea and meditation
before they adjourn to the bedroom
to help each other gently undress,
leave their false lives behind,
look each other in the reception of the eye,
and let the memory of the skin
guide their hands
in the calligraphy of love.

Maybe I’ll go fishing instead.
Maybe I’ll drink beer and whiskey shots
under someone else’s boat this April. . .
stay out of the rain and wind
and forget the color of scales
that roasted over an open fire by savages
would fill the gap in my belly
that used to pretend
it was Kharma.

I’m losing my mind again
as I consider what I could give up
for your heart—the one warm
and bloody object
I care about.

I need you
more than ever
to locate the path
from the center of you
to the center of me—
the epicenter that erupts without warning
into tremors of joy and grief
at all we will find in the rubble
of losing everything.

In this land of lost things
I’ll feed you fresh gnocchi with greens
and the bursts of raspberries
that heal everything.
In this place
I am a vagabond
of absolutely nothing
and you are the warmth
of home.