It’s summertime and the wind is blowing outside in the lower Chelsea and I don’t know what I’m doing in this city, the sun is always in my eyes – it crashes through the windows and I’m sleeping on the couch when I came to visit you.  That’s when I knew that I could never have you; I knew that before you did.  Still, I’m the one who’s stupid.  And there’s this burning like there’s always been.  I’ve never been so alone, and I’ve never been so alive.  Visions of you on a motorcycle drive by, the cigarette ash flies in your eyes and you don’t mind.  You smile, and say, the world, it doesn’t fit with you – I don’t believe you, you’re so serene.  Careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt, you’re guiltless and free.  I hope you take a piece of me with you.  And there’re things I’d like to do that you don’t believe in.  I would like to build something, but you’ll never see it happen.  And there’s this burning like there’s always been – I’ve never been so alone and I’ve never been so alive.  And there’s this burning, oh, there is this burning… Where’s the soul, I want to know.  New York City’s evil, the surface is everything but I could never do that.  Someone would see through that.  And this is the last time we’ll be friends again.  And I’ll get over you, you are not who I am.  And there’s this burning, just like there’s always been.  I’ve never been so alone and I’ve, and I’ve, I’ve never been so alive, so alive.  I go home to the coast, it starts to rain; I paddle out on the water – alone.  I taste the salt and taste the pain, I’m not thinking of you again.  Summer dies and swells rise as the sun goes down in my eyes, I see this rolling wave, darkly coming to take me home.  And I’ve never been so alone, and I’ve never been so alive.

-T.E.B.

FOR MY LOVER,
RETURNING TO HIS WIFE
                                   -Anne Sexton

She is all there.
She was melted carefully down for you
and cast up from your childhood,
cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies.

She has always been there, my darling.
She is, in fact, exquisite.
Fireworks in the dull middle of February
and as real as a cast-iron pot.

Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury.  A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window.
Littleneck clams out of season.

She is more than that.  She is your have to have,
has grown you your practical your tropical growth.
This is not an experiment.  She is all harmony.
She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,

has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
sat by the potter's wheel at midday,
set forth three children under the moon,
three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,

done this with her legs spread out
in the terrible months of the chapel.
If you glance up, the children are there
like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling.

She has also carried each one down the hall
after supper, their heads privately bent,
two legs protesting, person to person,
her face flushed with a song and their little sleep.

I give you back your heart.
I give you permission -

for the fuse inside her, throbbing
angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her
and the burying of her wound -
for the burying of her small red wound alive -

for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse,
for the mother's knee, for the stockings,
for the garter belt, for the call -

the curious call
when you will burrow in arms and breasts
and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair
and answer the call, the curious call.

She is so naked and singular.
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

an original piece, for the first time in a long time.

____

                                                                                                    Jan. 21, 2004
                                                                                                    (during English)

The wind took the snow from the top of the hills
and dragged it through the air like a man behind a car, on a rope.
Even Satan said, he'd rather reign from hell.
The white became riderless horses down from the
treeline, the forest expelling its unwanted innards.
A type of cleansing.  And somehow I feel a kinship.
We understand each other, those dead trees and I.
So much to hollow out. Pre-emptive spring cleaning.
Naked and dry, we'll stand ready pyres tempting the night sky.
Let the wind drag out the baggage, galloping equine.
We shall wield whips.

It’s hard to believe that there’s nobody out there, it’s hard to believe that I’m all alone.  At least I have her love, the city, she loves me – lonely as I am, together we cry.

What you found sure upset you
Never saw it coming did you?
It's easy to be surprised
With both your eyes sewn closed
Handled with great precision
Another faultless execution
You're the subject of this exhibition
A willing cadaver, a willing cadaver

Scalpled, stutured, made whole again

These cuts are leaving crease
Trace the scars, fit the pieces
To tell your story, you don't need to say a word

Call off the cavalry
You can't save a wretch like me
Clean this with kerosene
If you can't leave it be, might as well make it bleed

Scalpled, stutured, made whole again

Your wires are frayed, can't fire right
You look better when out of sight
You were not made to stand and fight
There's something better wrong with you

Your pulse is anemic, you're tired of the fire
You're bruising too easy, and falling behind
And no one is waiting for you

Call off your quarentine
You can't save the rest from me
Clean this with kerosene
If you can't leave it be, might as well make it bleed

-D.C.