Miller's Chapel

"Generally, the age of a cave can't be determined directly because the cave itself is an empty space."
-Oregon Caves tour guide

We populate our blindness
with nervous laughter, shuffle
our feet on unseen ground.

Somewhere a bat discerns
our shapes by listening.
You clutch my hand, moored

to the safe harbor of palms
and fingers as we are asked
to hold a collective breath.

Listen: dark like this presses
on your open eyes, your chest
sings out to it. Your body

contains this absence––all
bodies contain some light-
less core. Beyond the blood

that pulses in our ears: water
drops on stone like pecked
cheeks, wind from the lungs

of cathedrals built by paring
away. The sweat on our palms
could fill a crevice, carve a river,

raise a pillar someplace else
if given time. Bless the empty
spaces we could make––

I let go, and wave goodbye
knowing you cannot see
my hand. Later, driving home,

we hold our breath against
the walls of freeway tunnels
to keep the mountains aloft.

Non Finito I

"Never before had works of art so clearly revealed the process that made them."
Jeremy Angier

I.

When you die, you leave
dishes on the counter
you swore you'd wash

tomorrow. Or is it 'you
had sworn'? Tasks like that
become past tense right

in the middle of things.
For something so definite,
everything is half finished.

I imagine Donatello knew
this, left his works non
finito––a woman's face,

pensive, praying, perhaps
for hands instead of
the unhewn stumps

he left her; a wrestler,
struggling ankle- and wrist-
deep in the stone slab

of his uncarved opponent––
the suggestive power
of the incomplete.

The crumpled ghosts
of your dirty laundry.
Last song on the stereo, un-

rewound cassette tape
playing six seconds
of static. Not just the dishes.

The dustless circles
on the counter once
we washed them.

NaPoWriMo Day 12: Untitled (because I am lazy in the face of the apocalypse)

You tell me how long it will take
for the Sears Tower to crumble
in on itself like a star. Water will
be our undoing. You tell me

the pillars of bridges will stand
long after their roads have fallen,
but dead gods are no good
to anyone. Corn will shrink

to the size of a finger bone. The word
"bone" will mean nothing. Grass
will cover the streets ankle, hip,
waist-high––we measure the world

by our bodies and without them
the world still grows. Our untouched
oases––nature preserves like
fenced-in jewels––holding

the key to before in after. You say
the stars will again be nameless.

NaPoWriMo Day 6: The Ongoing Search for Truth

I'm told the average person tells
four lies a day. One thousand
four hundred and sixty lies
a year. The most common:

I'm fine/alright/okay. Second:
I'm sorry. The third is: I know.
You can understand the problem
of collecting this data, like taking

at face value the unseen second
and third hearts of the octopus,
the dreams of an infant not yet
born. Invasive (of medical procedures):

involving the introduction of instruments
or other objects into the body or body
cavities. From Latin: Invadere (see invade).
We cannot always break things open.

I will be an uncle next month,
my brother's first child. They called
him Little Sprout, then Big Sprout,
then just Sprout. We outgrow

most things given to us.
When he is older, and capable
of speech, I will not ask him
if he remembers his dreams.

I will ask how he is doing.
He will say he is fine. I will
say that I know

NaPoWriMo Day 5: Apocalypse Pow [fragment]

Entire flocks of turkeys
dropped dead that summer
out by the Air Force base.

Heart attacks. Who knew fear
lived beneath the breastbone?
But without our association

of explosions to progress, I suppose
test flight sonic booms would sound
a lot like the end of the world.

NaPoWriMo Day 3: My House is Your House

Rayne painted bricks onto the drywall
of her rented room in the basement,

then vines on the bricks, a city behind
that. When the washer and dryer

chattered and the water heater
hissed and groaned it sounded

like somewhere far off where she ended
up running to. We painted a lot

those days, footprints on the ceiling,
names and dates and sold the house

that way, gallons of paint in the garage
the original shade of each room

somewhere in the stacks. Look for
the drip-dried runs down the lip

of each sealed mouth. Break one open
with a hammer and chisel and

I'll bet it's still wet inside.
Whitewash everything and wonder

what we whitewashed to get here.
Cleaning out the attic, we found

a squirrel, hollow and flat and––
like a drum: the skin between

his mummified ribs and limbs.
I was six, no, seven. Our brother

held it aloft like a trophy, wanted
to make it talk, cracked its tail off

accidentally and we all felt cursed,
saw our pupils as black stones

at the bottom of every puddle.
In the basement the cat's foot-

prints were indelible in fresh
concrete, dried sharp enough

to snag socks or skin long
after the cat had died. I don't know

why we never fixed that. Maybe
the same reason we sold the house

without repaving the front walk
where our names and ages were.

They're gone too, without us
doing a thing about it.

There is always someone following you,
marring your footprints with their own.

NaPoWriMo Day 2: [Fragment]

Crouched behind the mandolin,
tail twitching from under the body
of a guitar precariously leaned
against the arm of the couch,
our cat hunts a felt mouse over
and over again. It's dead I say
over the lip of a bottle. Kill it again.
And she does. This kind of certainty.
How the face resides in the marble
block, already smirking. How every
stone holds a face, a hand. How
we all await the chisel, the claw.

NaPoWriMo Day 1: Disembodied

I.
The telephone
has told me that
you are dead

and apologizes
for bearing bad news.
I think it's nice

to give the television
a break from being
death's mouthpiece,

but do not say so.
I say Thank you,
and then thank you,

and then goodbye.

II.
The first telegram
read What hath
God wrought?

and I think of the few
men gathered
at the rail depot,

looking at one-
another, benefactors
to this ghostly message,

knowing there to be
a man on the other end
and doubting still.

III.
Tonight the telephone
will not stop apologizing
for my loss,

the radio crooning
that every little thing
will be alright in voices

I am convinced exist
nowhere but in
the object itself.

30/30 day 30: Fragment

Leashed dogs cower beneath the porch
before dawn. Peeling planks of wood
swell out nails like teeth, widen gaps
to yawn lazy in expectation of rain.

You peel lemon after lemon, separating
each segment and salting them, a cross-
sectioned core of some planet, glowing
and never seen.

30/30 Day 27: You, carrying severed head on a shield. Me, the head.-W4M

It was that goddamn mirror you carried––no, hid behind––that distorted everything but your ankles, calves, the impeccable curve and crater of one shoulder from behind it. All I could see of you I wanted to keep, the hand that raised the sword a perfect sconce for a torch in winter, for cradling drying herbs in spring. To hold something with grace is a beautiful thing, you know. The sword fell and I felt your hands in my writhing hair. You will never be more perfect than this moment. I love you. I hate you. You could be preserved for all time. A work of art. Just look at me. Look at me.

30/30 Day 26: Apologies

You say I would be better off
                        apologizing to the ruptured capillaries
            of your neck, shoulder, collarbone.

Some things I refuse to do. Others
                        I refuse and do anyway. You repay
            the kindness by making a prison

wall of my back, the captive days
                        hash-marked and raw. Summer languishes,
            the breeze from the window, the fan

at the foot of the bed, like lying
                        in a shallow, lukewarm stream. Nothing
            will cleanse what bleeds through

the next page, the indelible reminders.
                        What stains and does not wash. What
            is not washed, in case.

30/30 Day 25: At Lorine Niedecker's Grave (2)

I.
II.

The groundskeeper,
            ill-tempered and precise,
                        mows between each stone.

The trailing swallows
            make every comment
                        on impermanence

we can stand. I do not
            believe in portents
                        or the chattering

of cicadas as something
            beautiful––moreso
                        their husks clinging

to the oak, the hand-
            rail, the front door,
                        incapable of holding fast

their violent contents.

30/30 Day 22: Reprieve

The spider starts rebuilding
in the middle of a storm which
you tell me is a beautiful woman

in India shaking a silk Dhoti
after washing, the quiet claps
of damp cloth making thunder

to shudder-rattle the windows.
Not half an inch of rain
since July first, I was told yesterday

by the farmer selling asparagus
thick as a thumb. His crops
will be flooded and joyous tonight,

with the rain which is the water
shed into that far-off river in sheets
from the garment's weft and warp.

30/30 Day 20: Table of Contents

In New Jersey, medical students
forbidden from studying cadavers

use bone chisels to pry the hinges
from the morgue doors. You show me

a film of a dog's severed head––
It's Russian you say, as though

that explains the apparatus
siphoning blood through its host.

Nothing tragic about these days
spent invading the living, the dead,

the students opening men like
china cabinets, reverence, care,

setting the table with our contents.
The dog licks its muzzle, calm

as we are, watching it track
a flashlight, turn its bloodied ears

toward voices. This is where
it started, you say. Now

that machine keeps organs alive.
Somewhere, a fist of red muscle

beats in a clear box before transplant,
a lung breathes deep without ribs

to confine it. When finished,
the students replace the hinges and,

inside, the bifurcated seams that split
their subjects are sewn shut,

not a stitch out of place.

30/30 Day 19: Pity From the Sirens (2)

II.

The tired snakes writhe above me––
I can never tell when it's raining

without looking out the window. Early on,
I would wake with a satisfied weight,

usually a mouse, a rat, a roach,
consumed while I slept. Only men

turn stony, other creatures freeze
from that scaly gaze I can claim

only distantly as my own. Nothing
strays close these days, but the snakes

will never eat one-another––how
could I destroy a part of myself

with so much work to be done?
When champions plead, their hands

make a beautiful place for bird nests.
Every man is bettered by stillness.

30/30 Day 18: Pity From the Sirens

            "...'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror..."
                        -Percy Bysshe Shelley

It starts at the eyes,
not that anyone asks.

Too often the limbs
break before everything
is done––I have too
many fallen arms
littering my home, shields
as platters, swords enough
to shutter the windows,
fence the yard.

Pity from the sirens
whose art needs only
a sweet song and
sharp stones, one-time
shows lauded for
sincerity and scale.

For me, a fine line
between victim and
sculpture. A man
will always guard
his face. I paved
the path last summer
with so many stone hands.

30/30 Day 15: Apocrypha

My grandfather tells
a story so filled

with detail it is difficult
to parse, the hallways

of the boarding house
wallpapered with horses

running a constant circuit,
the veranda partially

screened, mosquitoes
invading nightly. But it is not

the hooves of horses which
make the racket he pounds

on the dining room table
of our now-modest home, it is

the footfalls of a ghost
which braves the insects

and wanders the veranda
after thudding down

the eighteen––eighteen
he is quick to repeat––

stairs of the house.
He counted them nightly,

counts them now, and
as he leads me through

every haunted room,
I consider the crop circles

outside Verona, the pressed
grass fallen like dead men

in rows, which, viewed
from above, make

an asterisk, an ampersand,
the last period in a sentence

which nobody knows began.

30/30 Day 14: The Exotic Other

On a minimalist kick.

The Exotic Other

Conical mounds, linear, effigy,
                        the last in the shape
            of an animal only

if seen from above.
                        In a fistful of earth,
            shards of pottery,

blades of glassy stone,
                        a tooth, a tarsus.

                        .

A skeleton shipped
                        from Rochester,
            catalogue number

drawn in pencil
                        on the parchment
            floor of the pelvis.

                        .

An African village,
                        transplanted
            to the world's fair,

six months of buzzing
                        generators, impossible
            Ferris wheel, Pabst's

first blue ribbon. Imagine
                        going home. Imagine
            not going home.

30/30 Day 13: At Lorine Niedecker's Grave

Took a field trip to Ft. Atkinson today with the residential poetry program I'm TAing.

At Lorine Niedecker's Grave

Why do I always leave
            the milk on the counter,
                        just long enough for it

to spoil slightly before
            I replace it at lunch,
                        sour little secret;

my keys on the shelf
            staring me down as I
                        walk out the door;

my pen on the table
            of a dead poet consumed
                        by remembering

every detail, small
            as a seed, hidden as
                        a pencil that has replaced

a bone in a living bird?

30/30 Day 12: Yes/No/Maybe/Never/Always

When Aron hands me back the joint
           and asks if this is what I thought
           it would all be like––it all being,
           I thought, the spacious interior
           of his father's SUV, my body
           cradled in a palm of plush leather,
           a gently closed fist of metal,
           skyline receding behind us, all
           aglow and shrinking behind
           the hills as teeth behind lips––