UNDO THE FOLDS
Rain’s syncopated beat
drums the tin roof.
Wind pulls back the folds of night
and a voice runs through my head.
It’s better to be welcoming,
let it land like a bird
that sees it won’t be caught.
A towhee swoops down for a treasure,
a tiny sarcophagus,
dried wasp in its shell of skin.
I hear the words again.
Lambs come into the world
most often at night,
slip through from another darkness
in their gooey coat,
stand within seconds
to be lick-bathed.
In the early morning
opening the barn door,
I saw the small hind legs hanging out,
reached to tie on
a piece of baling twine,
seconds fumbling
to make this mercy work,
pull it into the world,
hear the chant again.
LISTEN FOR THE BEAT
We all begin tied
to another, two heartbeats
braiding for months,
the quick one blooming
in the hollows of the slower pulse.
Three seasons and the tremor comes
when each prepares for the passage
through the gate of ischial spines,
the parting that begins
the search for a semblance
of the first union.
Grown, we comb the days
for a match, eyes that dart away
on the subway, dance-halls,
count as one of the lucky
if the old syncopation
laces the air.
Some wander like Magellan,
some go out for milk
and are gone for eleven years.
Some cannot be apart
for more than a day,
ache for the four
in the two-four beat.
For others the lacing unravels
in the alchemy of time.
But the first scar
aches to be soothed
walking the snow flattened grass,
standing alone in the kitchen.
Some hear voices, some anesthetize,
some paste a cobbled vision
on the inevitable oblivion
but in the end all the water
goes back to the sea.