White Necklaces and Rings
“If the gypsies come,
they will use your heart
to make white necklaces and rings.”
–The Ballad of the Moon, Frederico Garcia Lorca
The heart, how like a coffin—
its cerements, stiff sheets.
Imagine a marble bowl,
the tomb of strawberry, peach—
Which one is sweet?
Which one—grief?
Stone, scissors, paper
Fist, fingers, sand.
Can you taste the grit
between my teeth?
Oh, you are reading the news
again—fruit flies and bog.
Remember those dry stretches
in Patagonia—
we thought we had left home,
but there again, powder loam.
No grass, no tree—
just hither and fling.
the unslaked heart,
its bone ring.
Paper Nude at the Edge of Melancholy
after Matisse
Look how I have
cut away my legs
from the blue edge of morning
where the sky wears
nothing. Can you hear the little boy
singing Delft?
Or is it just the sun
hardening a china plate?
A blue clown
is trying to sound his flute
by sighing on the keys.
And the cello player watches
in that sad way grandfathers
regard grandchildren.
Buy me a bracelet of bluebells
for each ankle so I can dance once
again. Buy me a blue balloon
with a knot like an infant’s navel.