Upon hearing of your engagement and the death of Ginsberg

The owl struck three sad notes in the bell of night.

 

The owl struck three
sad notes in the bell of night.

 

The owl struck three sad
notes in the bell.  Who's left
to sing sings only now to the voice

that serves notes
to the ear. Am I that one?
as scraps of food

from dinners done collect in bowls
outside your door. But the dogs that roamed
and found are gone—the dogs are gone.

 

As I fold my shirts and bring them in,
the sky glooms dark on dark with rain.

And a heavy smell crawls through the yard. That bird
somewhere above me now, and still as brick

up in the palms, casts out his howl.
Is nothing wrong? he seems to beg.

The Gold Ring

Just these few
lost hours while outside
it rains and rains. I'm in
blues and dark
reds, my knees growing
stiff, achy, sitting
on the cold
marble floor before room
one-eleven. And the truth
is I'm waiting
for no one.

 

Down the hall,
the janitor. He
could be fifty. He shakes, slightly—
not just the nail,
rigid, new,
eye-level, but the hammer.
His whole body
vibrating now. Tremors
so slight you could miss them—
overlook this
entire man,
clad in white,
against the clean walls. Hands,
twice the size of mine. On his left

hand, barely noticeable,
a gold ring.

At the Hogbarn

So much on this mud road:
washed stones,
downed palm fronds,
a few black crickets. I watch your boots
sink and sprout up with a sharp suck
suck. Sometimes,
in Texas, the Rio gets so low,
the cows must walk the red mud knee-high
to drink. And they get stuck there.
A few sink too far.

 

Once I saw bones fastened deep
in a bank of tall reeds.

 

But I don't tell you
this. Some aren't easily
said.

Like the monarchs in Pacific Grove
or the oil-slicked pelicans off
the shore of southern Oregon.
The sunsets there reflecting in
the blacked waves horrible,
brassy hues: cobalt, carmine, burnt
sienna. So they mate,

the butterflies, high
in the scythes of a eucalyptus. And they stay there,
together, until dawn. Then one flies.

We pass the hogbarn.

Two hogs in high rain turn
in their stalls like slow,
rusted weathercocks.

Upon hearing that I can not have children

Between us the shaft

of cords and cables, wheels,
beams and rivets, ducts,

dim air, dust in sheaths
of light that reach from under

stacks and stacks of shut
doors. And bells. And

wheezing.

 

There's the button

to be pushed. That younger woman's child must

do it, watching
each bubble

reply with quiet brilliance.