Drought

Look. See how her fingers disappear
in her lover’s hair as she parts it
around her face without unveiling
it to us—how she keeps the preciousness
of what is unborn or already past.

There is a white that is whiter because it is gray.
See how she notices its beauty
and adores—presses her nose to the flower
without spilling a drop of dew,
as though love need not be animal or consume.

Can you tell which of them receives? Neither
can the grass upon the plain, swaying
with the tilt of her wrist and tasting of something
cool, like a copper bangle
that witnesses the warmth of flesh. It is like that.

But it is only the wind in a curtain of rain
far to the south. It will not
fall here. We plough the stubble under.

September

I saw a couple today—two women who stood
at the shoreline, cradled in the boat of a single smile.

Their faces were shaded, but their hands caught fire in the sun
as they reached out to one another, across

some sorrow from which it seemed the boat might take them.
Such is September—a time of leavings and leaves

like boats on the water. Everything sings for passage, and the winds
take the lucky. The rest of us wait with moons in our pockets

and dazzle of sunstruck wake in our eyes, hoping that morning
won’t find us alone on a shoreline curled with frost.

Siren

The spring flood’s subsided,
and the lights of the fishermen pace
the far shore for quarry.
The wind in the trees speaks of church bells,
and I walk the levee.
There’s a plan, they say,
to all things—to the paths
of fireflies and the greening earth.
My ambidextrous neck
knows nothing of it,
turns willingly to every distant song.
The fishermen will tie their knots
as I pull out the ribbons
and toss them to the lilacs,
let the night get her fingers
in my hair and pull
me gentle to the water
past an empty boat.
Forgive me. We are no papists here.
The waters can close above you
again and again, but it don’t count
till you’ve found something to believe in.

Photo by Marcel Strauß on Unsplash.