Love Down for the Next

The good thing with you
Is you won’t read us.

When we were on show
For those who would know

Who they were in us,
We looked dressed for church,

For a small, dull church
Of straight-backed chairs, tile,

Blank glass and blank stares,
Blue hair, like that church

Where love was preached, then
Put back in its grave

Each week to be saved.
We weren’t hymns. We weren’t

Scared of God and Hell.
We were there for show

And scared of that grave
For God they kept there,

Not-dead God of love,
Dug up each week, then

Shoved down for the next,
Poor love, short of breath.

And the Sand with Them

Your head’s stocked like a pond.
You put us in the pond,
And then you fish us out.

You make a chain of us,
A string of glints in sun,
And then you toss us back.

We swim off. Cool and dark.
You’ll be back. Once, you found
A chain you’d left too long,

Dead, dull scales in the sand.
Oh, well. You were in love
Back then. We were for show.

Too bad you can’t put those
Words back and let them swim.
Some of them were good words.

The one you wrote them for—
You cringe to think of that.
Tear them out of the sand.

Rude Guests in a Rush

Your home may be death,
But our home is you,
And we’re in a race,

Waves of us through you
To reach a new home
Where we’re on our own,

Words that don’t need life
To live our own lives.
For now, bring us home.

Far from It

The death of a big star
Is the stage of a star
That looks the most like life,

At least to those of us
Who know what life looks like
On our one hunk of dirt—

Death should bear fine names.
Let life have the foul
Names that mean to die.

Yes, yes, life is grand,
But the grand must fail,
Must stop with the grand,

And it’s weird that life
Looks worst as it fails
(There’s a foul name—fail),

While that which is not
Life, that which just burns,
Looks its best, most like

Life, most grand, as it
Bursts! A cloud of light,
Of waves of all kinds

Blooms in deep, dark space,
And you say, Now that
Would be death for all

Of life on Earth, if
Earth had been too close.
So far, all else fails.