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Chamber Music
1. Berceuse
Sleek and small and nacreous
you nestle
like a bullet
in my brain
The night you bloom—
quick-silvered,
frilled like a peony—
I'll hold my breath
These things are merely
a matter of time
Meanwhile
your secret's safe with me
2. Nocturne
Sunday night, Chopin:
sitting in separate skins
not talking
letting the bruises fade
love, listen:
times like these
your mouth goes soft like silly putty
soft, and something in me
slipping down
sits singing
where the wounds were
where the armor's torn away
3. Adagio (after Virginia Woolf)
October's blue doors baffle me
Through glass
the cellos of the wind
weep bitterly
Autumn and old loves
leave gold rings
ruthless as sphincters
bittersweet
From cellar to attic
beat the ghost hearts
but there is no key
Sometimes
the whole house smells of apples
4. Solfeggio
Dutiful as any Dutchman
I go on and on
writing words that you
will never read:
my thumbs, my
frantic fingers jammed
in dikes as if the sea
were really
level with the land
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