your hair sweeps naturally and gracefully back from your face

your hair sweeps naturally and gracefully back from your face


maybe that's my face
taped beside the mirror
so dirty you cant see yourself
as you sing to it
& draw self-portraits by candlelight

maybe, again, that's my face
in the candles of reflection

the nights that I can sit
somewhere & someone
(usually a girl
with someone else (a man))
can look at me like she isnt

you've been singing
& you want
to be able to write that
poems, prayer, letter, instant
taped next to my faded reflection

split by a stone thrown through an iceage
of peremptory white pages
stained by days, hands, spills & stolen pens

voice of hyacinths
overdubbed with a torrent of permutations

i'm going to school to be a singer
fly to a smaller city in a smaller state
for one square meal
& a bouquet of accents

i've had a friend a couple of weeks
an enemy since dawn
& a name since i felt the texture of your hand

tepid plaid is up all night
going to misprint a revolution
on the newspapers of your repetitious lips

(leastways a major misstatement
run your mouth
over hot water
under water
pressed to flesh)



maybe i started to sew when i was 5 or 6
i gave it up to break
clods of dirt behind grandpa's plow

locate your martini glass
shake terror, vodka & vermouth
in a jar
pour it into a pint glass

i lash a scarf to steam pipes
patient padding or a pillow
for you to fluff
in a bed you worried over

i found the money you didnt find
flattened ages of empty cigarette packs
filled the bathtub with empty bottles in plastic bags

lost count

the scarf
is for your neck
for your voice
for my walk in through cold bricks
after i sent you
on the train from worry