H. Addresses the Fold at Mid-evening

There was a blue light in my dream
last night—under a sliver of moon
I was fancy dancing with a girl
I knew in college, her ponytails
flying in the dry air—I awoke
to the world I’d made the day I decided
to leave her forever. I cut loose
the last threads connecting me
to Ysobel—I looked in her blue
eyes and wept one more time.

Brothers, I took my black dogs,
I went away with another
woman to the dark birch
woods—she later gave
birth to our children,
and we lived in a valley
where mud was as thick
as summer was green,
beyond our means, always
In love. And I am now

writing you for no
reason at all—there’s a cold
drizzle outside even though
It’s spring and the blue grackles
sing each morning, the young
ones, new flyers, wing and flash
before they land in the grass.
For the meanest of seasons
I’ve found no secrets at all
In this Midwestern scene,

So I call you out, unadvised,
to weep with me for our sister
who must wait eight months
to know if she’ll live to see us old.
While the drizzle surrounds us
we wait for midsummer to shine,
O you of the darker connections
who are still waiting for any night
in your endless desert light.

The Mexican Astronauts: Huitzilopochtli in “Neskyeuna”

Flew over the Mississippi, one
on his way to Illium, the other
on his way to see Machu Pichu.

I knew a naked woman—on the couch
and in the town we'd find the darkest
parks to search each other for love. I'll never
forget those difficult days yearning
as she and I walked through the Sonoran
desert at twilight. I would walk
barefoot and nothing would harm me—
I was in love and couldn’t be bothered.
When the mesquite trees turned in the wind
she said it was my voice moving though her hair.
In all that is and was
the spiked sun was nothing, our sidewalk
voyages were over by midnight. We lived in homes
where no one loved us. No wonder
we married next spring, on Walpurgisnacht,
in what used to be the deepest oak
woods lining the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson—
the Magistrate was there, in black,
with her leather book and velvet robe.
In the apple orchard afterward we drank
keg beer and white wine from paper cups,
walked into the fields to see bright petals breaking
in fistfuls from tree to tree, there
where years ago shakers had cut down
the forest to make room for planted
rows of quince and McIntosh.

The Mexican Astronauts: Huitzilopochtli in Memphis, Unbound

Once I flew to Memphis
to sleep with a swan—
the summer clicked to a halt
and I was as green as golden
water is at sunset.

At first, on the hotel
bed we sat crossed legged
while behind us on the desk
a dell computer spun old
tunes: we were old enough

to know we'd held each other
one night long ago
in the Sandia Mountains--
everything was different then.

The air was thin as ice
on a skinny pond, midnight
air, late spring. But this time
there were no stars to discover.

Only the hot summer sun
blasting from behind the thick
curtains that tried to keep out daylight—
it wasn’t my fault—I loved her,
I loved her that afternoon,
touching her face, touching
the small space she made for me

in a hotel room strewn
with thick white pillows, magazines
abandoned luggage. I loved her
as the sun went out
over the whole Southeast--

we heard the night birds
even above the roar of the planes
ascending from the Memphis airport,
we made plans as we traced
each other’s palms, finding

the small lines that led to one
another’s bed, a soft white
dream, a scene too often explored—
here in our heads and under the sky,
so often remembered, and never denied.