Leaves still grow around your heart
and a fresh pinch of salt
imprisons you in view.
None will know of me,
whose spice I am
whose love’s duration.
Often sings the wolf in my blood,
and I feel warm
in a foreign tongue.
Light, I say then, wolf-light
I say, let no one come
to cut my hair.
In foreign crumbs I germinate
and am word enough for me.
Transient, I tell myself,
for soon all germinating will cease,
a vestige of each hour expire.
Where No Place Is
Where no place is
the word drains the unmoved mountain.
Despairing line by line,
my Babylon.
Only the puncture-wound is silent.
Of other places,
I’m asking, friend,
And if another spring will come;
the unspent hours,
the rosebush steeped
in its awakening.
In the last snowstorm, friend,
fetch me the mistletoe, and
crumble a last pinch of winter
on my forehead.
Then, friend, soak
the unbroken mountain
with my vagabond blood.
May it bring me
forgiveness
before daybreak.
Nothing
Nothing,
no place.
The din of misfortune
resounds in my head,
and on the star chart
I am nowhere to be found.
Never was there spring,
whisper the ash-voices.
On the scale of language
they say I’m a weightless word
and I slice time
with sharpened eyes.
Future?
It won’t absolve me,
I the born askew.
Come, it says—
Death is a lash
on the eyelid of light.
A Universal Green
A universal green
soaks away
hour after hour.
Now you hear
curses, for turned
time tastes bitter.
A curse kisses
my hand
laughing foam, for
my hand is shriveling,
succumbing to
The never-having-been.
I am not bid
these days
to compound poison,
and were I
it would strike none
but dead firmaments
inept, stunted hopes,
impeding the evernear.
Die off in me,
motherless
degeneration.
Off past me
my heart plummets.
It is time.
