Ceremony
I married a hidalgo
in a green towered church
at the port. The priest
measured our vows
in a smoky vial,
touched lips unclamped
with his forefinger
to quiet vibrations
uttered as chords.
Did we think blue
pigeon-toed on cold stone?
Then etched our name
into vellum
forearms straining
with the slow curve.
Outside, in the flowering
dusk, lost our way
dancing with salty arms
as the dark stained our tongues.
Along the edges
My father was a tailor
knew the manufacture of lines
when to swoop and straight
the calculus of stitch.
My mother kept an inn
knew the bearded tastes of Men
and how to lift weight from the sky.
I remember songs light
as aluminium that I
arranged in scales
along the edges.
I remember swarthy dancers
wrapped in blue taffeta
large hands spinning me
in the pleasuring gloom
as Arctic explorers
must have felt
when they took off their furs.
The Young Wife
Already with child
on board ship to the gold country—
and the child cried
like coins in the pocket
when I moved.
I longed to rest these nights
against whitewashed wall.
Shape of a kidney bean
my baby would not rock
or take milk
stomach of silver fish
flipping.
Connection taut
and twisted in navel
freshly scabbed. I tried
to hold against wash and roll
as strong as the beams above me;
dark furrowed into light
showing spiders' webs
that harnessed us in.
Spring
If thunder scaped the sky
carved hill into horizon
jammed earth with heaven,
I always knew it blossomed
from the rusting squatter's shack
at the top of the rise
to the left of the saddle
where the sun dipped.
Of course, it bloomed and branched
in its weightless, laden way—
but what surprises
is how this gnarly cloud of sound
suddenly compresses
spirals through
and stays me
as if I were the boundary marker.