1. RiverWhat a noise you make;I do not wonder you hide in your slouching cityfrom the solemn and vanishing stars.
I understand. I too have broken my bounds in anger and joy,swollen my body in the spring rain and racedinto the triangle of my desire.
In truth, I envy you.Your multiplicity, your upward movements,your endless colored beads
arcing through the air with the confidence of gullswho tear my skin for food and then curlinto my curves for sleep.
In truth, I have adopted you for my purpose.
Only remember I have capacity enough for the ocean;your breath would fit within my shallowest reach.
2. PlayerI wanted oblivion in my youth,wanted her as my friends wanted her:without understanding what flat eyes meant across the bar.
I said her name before touching the strings,bought bottles to burn away her distance,pressed sleep to my twitching mind
that I might find her in the intersticesof dream and waking light, in the hollow bodyof my cheap guitar. And
I played. Listen—I played like no other.
As an old womanI know my ends.
Not dissolution into music or lovebut a sigh before applause,
a long look across the pillowat the beloved body I cannot hold completely.Peace. It’s peace now I want, as others before me have wanted.
It’s my hands now that shake, as high notes and leaves
have shaken. My mind is surethough the veins burst from me as dark rivers.I tremble from bank to bank. I overflow.The doctor calls it a human behavior
and traces the cause to whiskey. O, peace—
Music still plays in the drunken rooms,new chords for old songs.
I wish for all a half-death, the bodyneither vanished nor tangible.
3. BottleOf course I have wanted to kill,and tasted like it. Of course I have wanted to love,
as all objects want, in differing ways,their own consumption.
I burn, yes, but within decision,within the bounds of the willing body,as few things burn.
If this love I can pour into youis a narrow love and easily forgotten,if the laughter spills into rawness,
remember you chose me from the shelf.We burn together, or not all.Of course I have wanted to love.
To press myself to you and warmthe fingers, the luminous blood around the heart;to adore you from behind your eyes.
And so that I may leave a mark on this world,for my immortality:
set me down when you’ve finished.A gentle noise on the table. And for both of us,an empty rest.