Coxsackie and Cuttlefish Upon a Hill, River-Wide
the sun grandma is familiar once again
at the funeral the wind through the oak scribbles an alphabet upon each such was your generosity1
it scarred and reconfigured our skin unrecognizable as that first lover ‘s welt oracular, your own
long sweet bite of grief thinning, molasses dark as wet wood in winter and sweet in the tangle of hair
children fool time with combat games of stick and stone and the tossed sheets of arrested sleep
the cookies you made as knuckles bled, the jars that shone in the October dawn up from the river
you taught us worth in the harbour of mundane things, the sulfur singing
from an old spicket that turned our senses on a Sunday morning
the Times thumb-printing itself on our lips when we swept words, pages, our lips limp
you once said books were time and DNA, writers grand biologists remember
ink-stains on white shorts below the belt loops a slash of summer
in grass-green above the cuff love stains
the reminder of a curious mind, the dead-black cicada whose wings fan out on the red clay court
the white balls a garnet bruise
in front of Mansion + Reed General Store lovers cook up a quarrel over a cup of tea
longing, legacy and litmus
the cuttlefish in the pot, chocos grelhado
1the sea and the palms, shadows wrap curls around a lamp post at night
longing, is it you
may we die brisk in the Autumn light
forever looking toward hands brazened and beat-up, an abacus2
penned life into the palms of passersby, the veins of the Hudson after the hurricane
the great lawn’s tributaries after a storm, the undercut of the tree trunk,
the underboard and rust of the car in the junk lot misbegotten faith puddles in the rain
a window left open, the books stained by weather and hope
a pair of shoes left by the garage door run-over by Goodyear
tire-tracks charcoal the cement floor, a reminder
we are beasts and death leaves its pawprint everywhere
a porcelain cup licked by a Weimaraner, eyes mid-autumn super-blue moon
the labored-over dog bone in a red broken bowl found in the morning
the saliva lick still stuck long in memory as we write
death only the beginning of what we could not yet purchase or foretell
2the sea beckons unarranged, ungone, language unloved in the wilding rain
on an unsteady plane birding over the Hudson, recollection hangs from the wrist of your sweater
I wear the small hills of leaves set fire with buckets of coal burnt air recalls you3
children leap fearless, dragging life through the devouring
the scooped dirt by the grave’s mouth like coffee grounds in the kitchen can
cool to the touch, you wanted to bury your face in the earth but stood unflinching
the rich kids go tackling in their lasers down the river, lost to the lives in town
a lone dinghy caught in the pull and draft, the bravery of the particular
the drunk’s requiem, the father unsure behind the wheel carves the curve beyond Sleepy Hollow
Cloud splitter, mountain lion, rattlesnake and bear’s sky
this land’s winter apologia, name it after her
the Folgers drowned in bacon grease each morning, white grease scum coagulates
the spider hung low for the sliced apples in the twilight
the sulphur the sulphur the sulphur that spoke from the bath and the taps
the house on the hill, the loss and whiteboard paint fractures
3the song sung in the back of the boat round the island rowing
may we die brisk in the Autumn sun
the sun grandma is familiar once again 4
in the glass long in leg, you taught us to sing Old Yellow Perch come home
bones stuck in a throat, eyes cornflower blue as the Hudson licked young bodies mud-green
love and laughter lingering up the driveway and later fell
from our arms in the river's tempest and rocking
your Shaker chair sturdy still quivered late at night, poor old Ichabod Crane
we long for what we can not tally, the hoof clops and the pumpkin wind
softened sentences assuage all that unmakes us, you said really
love steers lives away, the first is never the first
seasons Upstate bedding untucked, kill-the-darling mistakes alluvial and heart-ticking
the dead in the river's meter and rhyme and the wool pulled in knots jocund
and fragrant you napping later in the afternoon
everything that dies once again divine, even the ride up the highway
as children, we emptied equations behind the barn into each other, broke limbs leaping
from windows, and pulled and tugged against the vanishing you
all we do is watch
the dead depart and wonder when it is us who clock out
the new that tames the heart at rest in the heart, if only
the fish bones sodded to earth and the stilled word
glass-figure you dropped as you fell down the stairs, we knew then
the soul goes through fire and flesh burns
and Uncle Chester in his Jesuit color and heart game unglued
yes we knew, did you
the moon high in the shoulder, the kiss lasting longer then promises bent
we hoped each city would untie us, each bridge more than weight
in this creak of a village life goes walking and the ghost dogs drop
and this poem weakens after a bottle of rum
the plate of cuttlefish and the green pea soup, over which we bickered
bodies beget and disappear and certainty runs
language and longing as butter in the high summer sun
love undressed and death won
may we die together in the May sun, our bodies swift as the Coxsackie shuffle, heart arun
