Thomas Heise’s collection Horror Vacui will be published in 2006 by Sarabande Books.

Examination [2]

 

You said yes? [ Yes. ] You said take my body down? [ Yes. ] You said take it down. [ Yes. Said. Its tendons were stretched and tender. Said ] Yes. I know [ I want home. I know ], because I untied it, I took it home      [ because the crows returned,     right, ] as the crows went up        from the elm’s crown [ down         the chimney, yes? ] then down. Yes, like smoke sucked backward   through broken flue: I stuttered around the room [ Said. My body’s soaked weight roped to your back ]. White paper rain in its hair [ like light ], torn hymn falling [ you fell onto your floor, right ]. No, I laid it on my  bed  [  Yes.  You laid it on your bed ] and asked [ to take down what it   said  ] its  name. [ Yes? ].  Should I speak its secret in your ear? [ Don’t ] and the body said yes?         [ please don’t. ] It had a map           of black stitches on its back [ It had a map of black stitches on its back? ] and a mud wasp hanging in its mouth [ Oh. ]. Its belly was smooth, no holes [ Yes. ]. As if it never hung from the tree [ No? ]. You’d think god loves horses more. [ Said. I know god loves some horses more. ] Is the world fouled? [ It smells        of river and eels. ] Its smell seeps like oil through my sleep [ Yet didn’t ]. Because [ the crows returned ]       the spirit rotted out [ with bits          of white hymn on their wings ]         or wasn’t [yet ] ever, I feel [ you still took it down, right? ]. When I name its secret in your ear [ Said. Its belly was smooth, no holes ] you’ll know I was  [ in its hands, ]  there and why I

came back [ from there to here ] altered [ without a mark. Said. What words you couldn’t take ]. To find them fouled, rotted to seed [ down, you wrote ]? They make my breath smell of bird [ on their wings. ]   when I speak grace. Yes. [ The body said yes, with its eyes it said ] I untied the secret from the tree. Stretched, yes, but tender? No. Yet the world’s not ever [ never  speak ] not stung and lost [ its truth             to me ] to me.

 

Rosary 

i.

*

dear mother why begin:     

            no amount of exhortation will bring it back

 

the world has been interpreted      there is nowhere to fly to

 

 

 

*

the long ago never coming back now    the long ago going going gone

 

 

 

*

moon lowered in my sternum is incandescent

 

 

 

*

can’t we be sad for awhile?      resting on our sides bleeding

waiting for the heart planted in the onion field to bloom into a baby’s blue eye

 

 

 

*

day breaks black       bequeaths you a bird song   

 

that’s all

 

ii.


*

sun rising      a white mushroom overnight

 

 

 

*

in this new world      a green parrot rides

on the shoulder of the quiet maid      whispering secrets

to her

 

 

 

            *

sunday morning      room to room      barefoot soughing the carpet

wonder what I might remember next

 

 

 

*

the sky cornflower-blue      filled with a thousand airplanes

bringing the Annunciation     

to the poor

 

 

 

            *

dismantling the pause between waves of noise for a moment

for what it augurs    for where       it leaves us

 

 

 

            *

at my feet    a silky web of mildew                      

                                                screwdriver    footprints

 



            iii.

            *

kneeling on the side of the road      the moon                       

over my left shoulder   

we lift a spare tire onto the rear axle

 

 

 

            *

in the residue of morning

swirling leaves      menus      damp garbage squats on the sidewalk

next to the

 

 

 

*

days later on the roof I point

 

an antenna at the city like a divining rod

 

 

 *

             heart shoved in a pouch of figwort

            iv.

*

turning a word inside out to see what

it is lined with what it sounds like

who it belongs to

 

 

 

*

tkk tkk tkk    emanates from the lonely and is always

 

 

 

*

ripples on the surface indicate some sort of spirit

or is it

 

 

 

*

stethoscope pressed to the earth:  hooves

 

 

*

I have swallowed my bracelet    I hide a sunbeam in my mouth

 

 

 

*

silver capsule      the plane disappeared

 

into the hole where the sun was

 

 

*

wing-shadows glide over the snowy lea

 

 

 

*

where are we:                                       

now   

 


 

            v.

            *

eyes palm-pressed      compressed      poulticed      closed     

                                                                                                fall in ocean then

 

 

 

            *

            deep in the woods    horns scrape make a dry crying like cicadas’ wings

 

 

*

calling

vi.

*

so I believe      my own forward boot march      my own meadow foam blowing

 

 

 

*

wind branching and gathering in folding leaves into a canopy

 

 

*

folding the hands and arms into origami into the shape

of a bird that flies up into the tree back into the shape of your hands:   

your open arms

 

 

*

a word planted under my tongue when ten

sprouts      stems outward      whorled

 

 

*

which one would you like son? 

pick the left hand   

a cricket leaps clicking into hot air

vii.

*

a wet spiderweb hanging from a pear branch   

suspend it in the window, this galaxy

 

 

*

temperature falls    the moon dissolving like a tablet

 

 

 

*

clouds laden with sparrows       and night rain       and wind

 

they bring on their wings to leave

 

 

*

remember my name is sweet william   

 

I am not sweet remember   

I will join you in early spring I will

 

 

 

*

a basket of red       plucked 

from beneath your bed

and a cage under my other arm