Blue Rock

  to crop up, depending. Maybe I still do. We

  harvested a part of yourself to prepare shelving

  Mason jars in a marriage. We planted this

  relationship with the antilock brakes applied

  to crop up in crossfire. Maybe I don't deserve you.

  We harvested muskmelons and blueberries

  we'd prepare to sell door-to-door through apartments.

  ~*~

  LV

  You touched electric trolleys filled with

  ghosts in my canoeing movie line. You

  touched high tails tracking sky wires in my

  cost-benefit analysis. You touched an attitude

  I want to change in my suspense, for you.

  You touched smoke screens and deceptions

  in my playful, passionate expression. You touched

  traffic parked in my silken tapestries of social skills.

  ~*~

  LVI

  My touch has the stress of irregular hours in your desire

  to assume control over my feelings. My touch pursues

  Buddha but encounters Shiva in your urban junkyard.

  My touch frolics in your dread of losing other options.

  My touch is flexible, centered, self-secure where

  your graffiti inked my body forever. My touch

  is compassionate, caring; not uptight or bossy

  in your weaving seminars and yarn stores.

  My touch is able to articulate and share deep emotions

  in your body seized by lunar rhythms, even an embryo.

  ~*~

  LVII

  You tasted nothing more than what I've been willing

  to extend in local politics. You tasted a divorced

  white male who was married nearly ten years

  like tomato sauce on its "three-day ride." You tasted

  unfinished business brought home each evening. You

  tasted some deep psychic wounds conveying fascinating

  homemade Hollandaise insights. You tasted gravestones

  arrayed like lobster pots. You tasted unforgettable

  champagne in Vienna when some anonymous patron

  picked up the tab. You tasted another onion ring

  jinxed by your mother's triple miscarriages.

  ~*~

  LVIII

  You taste a strand of barbed wire

  in my lifetime of betrayals. You taste

  a white church at the end of a cornfield

  in my chemistry or plumbing problem.

  You taste black leather and stainless steel

  links in my fear of dying alone. You taste

  wealth and glamour against my presumed

  poverty and ineptitude. You taste girlish

  exuberance in dancing leaps over my secluded

  mountain cabin. You taste a weekend

  in Barcelona in my twenty lines of introduction.

  ~*~

  LIX

  At night they advised me that to find

  a proper companion one must first envision her

  and then go searching before dawn produces

  tomatoes and green beans from her garden. At night

  a unique magnetism touches my arm before dawn

  a conjuncture of how many triangles? At night patterned

  fern shadows cast by candles play against walls

  and ceiling as you sit on my lap and we watch

  a blizzard plaster the windows before dawn we enjoy

  singing four-part a cappella hymns. At night I don't

  want to get any older before dawn seventeen-year

  cicadas sound like ratchets or even chainsaws

  in the woods — chains running over sprockets

  — sparrows crashing against the windshield. At night

  you hint of abuses in so many of my previous lovers

  before dawn I know what I have won, pain and all,

  in dumping the self-centered chick with the expensive

  G-string. Que lastima. At night the bad boys

  have such an advantage with good girls before dawn

  demands a Nerd Rescue. At night, you advise me.

  ~*~

  LX

  You promised we'd buy a thirty-two-foot

  sailboat and have harbor mooring but I found

  stemware filled with hearty red wine. You

  promised mountain climaxes, tidal swells,

  symphonic crescendos, but I found big bold

  solid-color coffee mugs early in the morning.

  You promised gourmet home cooking, chamber

  music and theater, but I found archaic and

  startling cinematic touches. You promised

  sustained massage, Continental cuisine,

  poetry by candlelight, foreign films, moonlit

  caresses, fireside pinches, but I found rare

  Georgian recordings. You promised distinctions

  between Mozart and Mahler, marigolds and fresh

  mint, Moliere and the Marx Brothers,

  Moselle and mussels, Matisse and Modigliani,

  but I found leather-bound Quaker books

  printed in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds.

  You promised homemade pasta, wilderness

  pathways, playful and profuse passion,

  preludes and fugues, profound sensuality,

  and spiritual fidelity, but I found Moundbuilder

  artifacts, possibly two millennia old, dug from

  Ohio farms at the turn of the century. You

  promised nights at the opera after an afternoon

  at the ocean but I found you don't deserve me.

  ~*~

  LXI

  In my pocket is a tulip tree blossom you'd extend

  to a bluebird. In my pocket an envelope

  preserves a pearl and two childhood teeth you'd take

  to a picnic. In my pocket I have a letter of affirmation,

  knowing you'd panic at the mere thought

  of having to introduce yourself to any self-assured stranger

  at a cocktail party. In my pocket a strand of rope unravels

  whenever you consider defining me as one of

  the boys. In my pocket are crib sheets

  for uncomfortable social settings where you'd concoct

  unexpectedly humorous retorts. In my pocket you placed

  an invitation to your neighbor daughter's wedding

  where you knew I'd be your trophy alien.

  ~*~

  LXII

  My hands hardly know the soft skin

  of the racist cheerleader in your returning

  adolescence. My hands keep seeking to find you

  at a sock hop I never attended

  while you, in your exquisite beauty, so hungered

  for approval from other males. My hands may be

  seeking my father's blessing in your jockeying

  for status position. My hands enjoy slipping under

  clothing in your meteorological variations

  and global navigation. My hands never forget

  when the fine arts are a front

  for lusting where your shorts and golfing socks

  tense up toward a pantry. My hands sleep together

  and move forward in this much knotted lovescape.

  ~*~

  LXIII

  You left my classmates' perceptions where

  I refused to go shopping for bargains. You left

  while I was drinking where I set forth

  on my great detour. You left by sending

  your mother to return my possessions where

  I spooled into manly things. You left all the signs

  of the depression where I believed a pure angel

  would intersect me, but she never quite

  touched. You left diverse and often contradictory

  characters where I hear Mozart and Schubert.

  You left a first wet, sloppy open mouth

/>   broken off by my best friend's intrusion where

  so much has evaded me or slipped away.

  ~*~

  LXIV

  You sound so far from a sushi raw bar

  in the land where my marriage was finished.

  You sound twilight exquisite in the springtide

  of lilacs.

  You sound too precise, concise, methodical

  in the mystery of your attraction

  to certain people but not others.

  You sound bewildered in the your landlady's complaint

  that once, "All the time, day or night,

  it's always the squeaking, pounding bedsprings"

  — when I was living so far away!

  You sound your part so well

  I rarely penetrate your mask

  in my move to Bolton Hill.

  You sound sorry only that I didn't break off earlier

  in any genuine caring for my welfare.

  ~*~

  LXV

  You strike gongs of living silence in another

  small declaration of my freedom. You strike

  a period of uninterrupted concentration on your work

  and skid to a crash in multiple fronts to examine. You

  strike too many loose ends to even know where to begin

  in my ex-wife's trousseau. You strike crying babies

  in neighboring apartments in your forgotten history.

  You strike four long-stemmed wine glasses in a river

  that does not run backward. You strike some crucial

  common interests in things I have carried too long

  bound in my ingrained roles of caregiver and lifeguard.

  ~*~

  LXVI

  When swaggering air swirled to fetch us, you

  misread my feelings over the past

  half-dozen or so years. When swaggering air

  assured we'd soon be back together,

  you insisted these were loans, not gifts.

  When swaggering air configured prayerful hands

  laid over my heart, you acknowledged

  for the first time, in past tense, we were ever

  lovers. When swaggering air disclosed more secrets

  than you realized, you sounded as though

  breakups are all the same. When swaggering air railed

  against a position you'd eventually claim

  as your own, you asked about future contact.

  When swaggering air raised a wall between us,

  my fortunes changed dramatically.

  ~*~

  LXVII

  A Sorceress thinks the only requirement

  to solo in Carnegie Hall is ownership

  of a Tchaikovsky Competition gold medal.

  A Hero hears a clear, powerful voice that proves true

  when put to the test. A Sorceress awaits defeat

  and then victory. A Freudian slip, switching

  Grasshopper and Cobra. A Hero takes long walks

  in the evening you never seem to comprehend.

  A Sorceress keeps your signals crossed. A Hero has

  a pressing agenda. A Sorceress is the worst twelve

  months of my life in the echo of exultation.

  ~*~

  LXVIII

  It's a mistake for you

  to writhe in the passenger

  seat before your irises

  blaze anger and you dart,

  shamelessly mocking me

  to ultimately excuse your

  wreckage. It's a mistake

  for you to gush on the phone

  about a new lover, until

  my subdued inquiry,

  "So how can you use him?"

  draws you off-guard into

  uncommon frankness,

  "Oh! In every way!"

  before recognizing

  my ambush. A mistake,

  also, to counter: "Hey!

  I don't like the sound

  of your question!" It's even

  a mistake for you to threaten

  you'll summon body pickers

  to the graveyard. More a

  mistake for me to ask little

  or nothing in return, veiling

  my reason for relocating

  to Baltimore. It's a big mistake

  for you to claim the telephone's

  just disconnected so you can sleep

  uninterrupted, rather than your

  cover-up for unspeakable

  betrayals. A much bigger mistake

  for me to consider you my lifetime

  soul mate when it seems I've been

  little more than your bailout option.

  ~*~

  LXIX

  When it rains gold hoop earrings, I keep

  returning to adolescence, to seek you

  in a sock hop I never attended. When it

  rains calculations the wild geese know,

  I reach into nettles. My fingers and wrists

  sting. When it rains upon my parents'

  denominational traditions, we sleep as we do,

  alive with points of departure. When it rains

  on a muddy reservoir, you, slender lover,

  remain a cipher, a case of perhaps, maybe,

  what if. When it rains glances during outdoor

  concerts, the past holds our future. When it

  rains the skills to negotiate social intricacies,

  this is not the first time you have been here.

  ~*~

  LXX

  With this ring of bells on your

  ankles, I would listen for one sounding

  slightly out of key that reveals

  everything. With this ring of shadowy

  caverns beneath my dwelling-place,

  I would keep blaming myself when things

  weren't working out between us. With

  this ring of gaudy wallpaper about

  to peel away, exposing skeletons and

  gallstones, I would rest my chin atop

  your head. With this ring of thunderclouds

  arrayed like piles of gunpowder, I

  would answer the delirious vehemence

  Lilac Girl set ablaze. With this ring

  of blonde pubic hair, I would reckon

  each day. With this ring around the lake,

  I would fly north, into birch pollen.

  ~*~

  LXXI

  You feign one-sided involvement in my

  scintillating falling. Wafting snow

  afternoon abed with one still yearning

  for another. You bring the bag

  of what had been our engagement

  to my seven-to-seven, seven-day-a-week

  job engulfment slipping away

  from those who would accept

  such prolonged unanticipated switcheroos

  strumming a chord swelling

  between my legs. Your overtures keep

  exploding crickets in thistle.

  ~*~

  LXXII

  I rely on misleading statements.

  You are the Garden State Parkway.

  I have come to regret my decision

  from which locale? You introduced

  prolonged times of celibacy in a tearful

  morning phone call to Brooklyn. I am

  a painful contortion trusting words

  you so convincingly uttered until Art Nouveau

  meets American Comix. I am the debris

  of our civil war. You are its lazy

  reptilian torpor. I so much wanted

  to hear your three-part radio broadcast.

  ~*~

  LXXIII

  Please don't harbor my Rapunzel

  in her wasp flight. You'll notice

  curious warts on the leaves. Please

  don't shock me into recognizing

  affairs I could have had while

  still married. Please don't reject

  my desire as "too itc
hy." Animal

  bones — even cow skulls — served

  her Georgia O'Keeffe period. Please

  don't act so prophetic. I know nothing

  of starry matters. Please don't let

  the sex between us die. We vowed

  we'd never resemble our parents.

  Please tell me you're sorry.

  ~*~

  LXXIV

  Facing a turbine of resolution

  and conjecture that impels

  my hereditary current, I finger

  your beguiling flaxen smile.

  Facing the scintilla of glimmering

  water, I finger a thermometer

  recording daily temperature

  extremes. Facing an unbridled

  wind, I finger a cup size matching

  two figures. Facing a setup

  for disappointment, I finger

  the shadows of an abandoned

  television tower. Facing the soft skin

  of a racist cheerleader, I finger

  old wasp nests in a telephone

  circuit box. Facing the awkward

  adolescence of our prom night,

  I finger the clinical application

  of your diaphragm or my condom.

  ~*~

  LXXV

  Your face has required

  an appropriate opposition

  so close to my origin.

  Your face flickered

  with laughter now rippling

  from your married daughter.

  Your face admired a twinning

  shadow in my own soul, missing

  parts more than innate loveliness.

  Your face is backed by florid

  wallpaper in our grandparents'

  garish farmhouse parlor.

  ~*~

  LXXVI

  Come here, to the bonds ringing a couple

  where I so resemble my Tar Heel ancestry.

  Come here, to trust, foolishly, in fidelity

  where I beg for her mercy.

  Come here, to half of my life since adolescence

  where I labored under false expectations.

  Come here, to that confirmation I had assumed

  only a gentlewoman could elaborate

  where bluntness has been my manner.

  Come here, to what I could share with my beloved

  where an imagined locale is restored

  to intricate dreaming.

  Come here, to fields of desolation or entombed rage

  where I have pursued the hummingbird.

  ~*~

  LXXVII

  By the water, there is psychic space, indeed.

  By the water, you are attracted to certain people,

  but not others.

  By the water, I have lacked an intimate companion.

  By the water, I could not admit until recently

  my need a woman who could can

  tomatoes and peppers.

  By the water, nothing could soothe nothing.

  By the water, fervent statements have been so difficult.

  By the water, take pity on me, love!

  ~*~

  LXXVIII

  The shark has not explained why this has to happen.

  The goat should know better.

  The crow has a safe deposit box.

  The grasshopper owns too many shares to be disinterested.

  The bullfrog cannot afford to be without their policies.

  The salamander is running for sheriff.

  The jellyfish sounds like applause.

  The rabbit invited Pueblo Indians to come for dinner.

  The mockingbird detects a note of envy.

  The cicada reaches into realms of imagination.

  The turtle comes full circle.

  The crocodile is never unblemished.

  The shark has no need to be clever.

  The goat explores the Mystery.