Poetry

A day comes
when it has always been winter,
will always be winter.

If we agree that the truth is never
  only what we want to believe,
the urgent arguments of desire

still have the body’s weight behind them,
 the weight of the bully who tells you
what to say and then makes sure you mean it.

Above the kitchen table where my children color,
their big calendar frames a drawing—

Combing my hair, a sudden snarl
in the pink teeth.

How silent, death entering.

Wind does one thing with clouds,
 another with leaves;
the clouds go, go, go; the leaves

There is this sunny place where I imagine him.
A park on a hill whose grass wants to turn
Into dust, & would do so if it weren’t