From this park bench
as if some balcony
--no one expects applause.
I lean out the way the grass
and those thick skies that won't open
--I don't have a clock to look at
to preen, to stroke its wings
beating above some storm
--I know that soon the park
will be airborne, emptied
and this stage
hovering over all these benches
will be some seabird making its pass
rehearsing --you will sit near me
afraid to close my eyes
or my hands
or if a shore will ever come.
The scaffolding in place
smells from iodine and gauze :the plaster
impatient, reaching through
for somewhere else --you wrote, try
as if this single-minded
crack would soon cry out
and tracks that suddenly end.
There's not enough wall! these cramped planks
bending, your words face each other --I try
as every leaf and still the branch
lets go --my palms worn smooth
closing over your breasts
--I named this wall Try, my hands
falling toward its cry, its flutter
its bandage come to take me home.
And the long march calling home the dead
comes to an end :last sunday's newspaper
even without holding it up
hangs midair, faded, lays folded
could use a lamp :a mourner's song
and cadence --once I turn a page
I hear its first footstep
--don't be hard on the bird.
It must have heard me splashing
making a sling :these pages spread
one from the others, every word
too heavy. There are no birds left.
Funerals have always been songs
and though I still look down
I don't climb into my shadow
to close some cockpit canopy
--have always been in the daytime
so you can make out how the lid
just by laying down
wears away more air --in the half light
you see whose cry it was -you make an arch
cup your hand and your ear
aches --there's nothing except more words
already cold, covered with paper
waiting for its slow roll and the fire.
