THE SKY THAT WAS MY MOUTH
Take the sky that was my mouth,
Take the words that were my bones,
Take the time that was my hope,
Take the rhyme that was my heart,
Take the body that was my gift,
Take the thoughts that were my map,
Take the self that I imagined would one day be fingered as direction and dendrite.
For you who took but did not know what you hungered for,
I forgive that in all its plundering.
Put all of these in the pocket of your hip and recall:
You shall not walk without braze.
There, stepped and turning, we join and fall like a hurled top
spinning.
If even you bury me in soil or sand or sage,
take all that you need
for I am scattered and am calm with the time it will take
for you to gather me:
the brush along the ligament that cannot be soaped away.
Carry that, far and afield, in the morning when you wonder from where
the stain came,
for that moment when hope comes galloping over the hill
like bruised, bronze light.
