J. Tarwood

ASK ME IN THE EVENING

I saw her at the cave's mouth,
big black hair blown back,

and the creek a brittle bone.

It seemed a fine idea,
her singing
with a gun in hand,

and me paddling
upstream to the vision pit.

But my canoe kept kicking rock.
She'd only do nothing
in light or dark.

No more buzzard poems,
she said.
Ask me in the evening.
That's the time for truces

with female forces.

LITTLE STONE SISTER
(for the New Year)

With teeth like seams
and hands like gills,

the little stone sister

quivers her wings
clear as dew

freshening burnt grass.

Heavy as a mother,
she'd love to rise

after a big scared breath

like white dough
in a black oven.

But she's got to sit,

a blond light tossing
like bangs in a breeze

deep in the rock

that would such rather be
just her pretty head.

She's waiting for her brother

high in his shadows
like a coral reef,

splashing together tart spirits

for the grand pleasure
of looking all the way down.

THE SILENCE OF GOLD
(after Jimenez)

This is the last afternoon,
the last go-round of familiar stuff,
cut off like a slug
in a hail of salt:

and I should live forever!

The sun and its surly mob
of cross-eyed petals
cruise stinking streets
to heave-ho my heart on board--
now left out on grass somewhere
like junk so big
it needs a special pick-up day:

and I should live forever!

Beauty I have clenched
like the thick dyed hair
of a yelping whore,
why do you
get to be and be and be
like a diamond dumped in a swamp

when I should live forever!