FROM GLACIER FIRE

WALKING UNDER NIGHT SKY

On call at the hospital, you doze
          until someone codes
in primary colors - another bedside hand
          to warm, more prayers,
more mystery to explain. At home, my radio
          drones past midnight as bombs
drain the heart of Baghdad into my dream: something
          strafes the lakefront; finds us
in separate beds, different cities. Resting
          on the horizon,
at vernal equinox,
                    the moon swells
          as if you guard me,
your face looming over Earth's rim.
          Moon illusion-
only the name grows large: Worm or Crow
          or Awakening. A flash
glazes my window with memories:
          me, lying in your arms
while sheet lightning drapes the trees;
          hearing my grandmother whisper
lightning turns grass green.

          No hope for sleep. I walk
out back under deep sky
          looking for crocuses, daffodils
in bud - not knowing eight billion years ago
          two asteroids collide
between Mars and Jupiter. Tonight their fireball
          bursts over the upper midwest.
Thick minutes of wondering
          whether the sky falls
or stars shoot,
                    or silkworm missiles sear the lake;
          whether I can reach you
in time for bones to meld, our blood
          to powder, adift in the same cloud;
to give you my last breath or take yours;
          when meteorites shatter mirrors,
smash windows, open roofs to the bright
          possibility of darkness.

READING IN BED

Your letter ends as night
                    settles in waves
among stands of cattail
          blurring the track.
Nothing to declare at the border,
                    except monarchs spent in mating,
dancing to Earth, wings carpeting
          the rainforest canopy.
Once at home, I know what to say
                    when all that's left of summer
paints a fringe of hollyhocks along the highway,
          blue and white pinwheel
tents of yesterday's carnival.
                    What do we make of the rest?
The day after the Day of the Dead
          you see paper
bunched in the sycamore - a lunch bag,
                    you say, which Molly's kid
tossed into brown leaves,
          hiding bologna sandwiches.
Rolled pages of a nest of wasps, I think,
                    whose farewell stings candle eyes
of jack-o'-lanterns. The moon half ember
          half ash.
Early evening in our king bed - on pillows
                    we balance novels -
yours, about war in cities with sci-fi names;
          mine, the mystery of murder,
the Celtic countryside gone wild.

WIDOW'S MITE

On the eve of me wedding to you, I keen
at his grave
the freezing spray of carnations
falling from my hands
like crystal tears, the dust of crushed dreams-
ashes to ashes.
My angel he was, and were it otherwise,
the Earth could not keep him,
or me, as I wonder whose hand I hold
when doors close and open
to our eternity
in the brief sleight of dawn. Yours, the breath
of night wind
under my window; his, the brown aftertaste
of memory,
knowing what I have, what I had.

HOUSE BREAKING

To escape the wilderness in your mother's house-
cardboard boxes crusted with sealing tape,

stacked like stones of Jack London's Wolf House
before dreams turned to ash - we walk your backlot

where the Gourd drips stars into Friar Creek,
where tadpoles leeside paddle strength

into bug legs; amber carp
shelter from my shadow twisting waves

the way your father's flag, outside your room,
struggles against its rusted pole,

torn stripes like dry leaves that srping for freedom
that comes as wind, as a grey heron

skirts the persimmon
I wear your mother's chevron chain-

the one her mother smuggled from Skane
in her girdle, old gold lying warm and flat

against her belly. Quail
bob their plumes on chestnut crowns, sing

their insistent scuttle as we crate
your pictures - green hills in watercolor,

dandelions going to seed in fine pencil
the Bay, heavy with boats-

drawing board, wooden bed, chest. Little else
remains. And if the astronomer is right,

if some form of warm, dark matter
is the best bet, right now

to show how the universe sprang from clumps
of stuff to galaxies erupting, then I believe

the myth which names this palce-
how sky exploded, birthed moon, stars, sun.

Turning her eyes from the hibachi wind chimes
above the patio, the acorn birdhouse you gave her,

your mother lingers to straighten my necklace,
touch my face with new hands.

Gold, she says, more beautiful against black skin.
At dawn, Highway 12 wends past a vulture

draining night into its wings, opening the sun.
          Tonight, our last in Sonoma.

After we make love, we go
walking toward the moon.