TO BE ASCETIC (5-6)

(5)


It is a pigeon or dove, the way
it breaks off and goes up,

it would have to be someone
intensely afraid


The one of two places, the tree
to be beneath, tree that shakes

things off and breaks
the way we break off and go

out or in, the pale outline

of doves or pigeons falling away
from the rafters, outline of my hands or yours,
I can not decide.

- - - -

You, who I have known, dumb
from work, are on the back
of a drawing. Your dark nostils
blot the page. You have drawn my back
to you, my whole back, on the last page
of a large leaf and another, of my mouth full
of gills. You are working for
this picture, the relation it makes, the scene
we have made in the upper story of a guest
house, fumbling for the hour and the next thing,
drawing out the sound of





, where the twigs
and trash are
equally skewed

Her wake of twigs
and trash, printing your car
with delicate feet.





(5) Summer

Go on, as a wolf, to you. My face lies
like a blunt cusp in the yellow
grass; it is my aim

to be pale and hard. Be in
bed at dusk, in the angled grass,
spitting in your hair.

Your hands are under
my gold head, my watch,


and things are coming

of soft dirt.

of dirt that’s dust
and worked over.