Muse, two thousand and seven

pictures of you again, and they call back your animal

smell, the softness of the flannel you wore, the softness

of your voice, I always had to lean so close to hear

that your soft hair tickled my face. Jason's wool.

Your paint-stained hands, great thumbs, the stink of your

great white feet, beached whales. the celebration

when we came to an elevator, when we came to the

ice-cream-vending-machine

(that deserves its very own line); fantastic; your manic eyes

like animals, like animals, but somehow

each day you were in clothes, buttoned right. it was like

a miracle, or maybe like a sin. You and your clumsy limbs,

the gawk of your height, golden-haired giant, monster, muse, me

moving always closer to you, me drawn always closer--

phoenix, phantasm, there's something miraculous

about the fact that your long eyelashes and mine

collided, July, our shyest sleeves kissing,

about the fact that I ate your radishes: you taught me

that anyone's learnable, even a prophet,

even the least earthly prophet.

Union Square

All trampled in

footsteps, chess boards, agonized

phone calls, cigarettes, harassed by

Greenpeace, cornrows, dreadlocks,

little children singing these are a few of

my favorite things: sunglasses and high heels,

iced coffees, marketing, we're going marketing here,

plastic flash shopping bags cash flow,

man on a horse peering over us, me and you,

new bride bursting in strawberries

and cream, shotgun wedding,

ravished Union Square.

AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE

After the earthquake I think that Orion

readjusted his belt; it seemed to hang lower

on his waist. I mean, it might have been the change

of seasons, an adolescence. But

the tropics seemed nearer, warmer, and

my tongue wanted to unhook his stars,

and I wanted to see the world unbuckle.

I wanted to see the sky exposed

and shaking. I wanted his bow and his arrows,

unslung, vulnerable. I wanted the tides

to tug him down, down, until

he would topple and fall.

John the Baptist

Unknowing, unknowable boy,

and me with my wheelchair clairvoyance,

I try sometimes to penetrate

the seven veils that separate

us. Your eyes are the color of something inedible.

You play the teeth, torque the locks with your

knuckles, big and precise and white;

you are a shadow preaching

within tobacco fog again. Your eyes

are the color of something inedible.

If I licked them they would taste like chlorine.

You are covered, too, in a blue tarp

that has been collecting leaves since September.

You have been collecting leaves since September.