Four Poems

1. Aubergines


The heat undid us,

Leaving our purple bellies swollen and soft.

Can you smell the clouds heavy with salt?

Hurry. The wind is rising.

Bring lime juice mixed with honey.

Rake this flesh with oil

And wait

While the rain pulls back our skin and melts away.


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2. Hang Zhou


I arrived in late August when the days were heavy with heat

On a steam locomotive,

Rocking back and forth through the hemp fields and mulberry trees.



The place smelled of rotting watermelon rinds and lotus flowers

Of cooking oil and sweat soaked cotton sheets.



Behind me the peasant women arrived on pilgrimages to LinYin Temple.

Toothless and illiterate, they encircled me,

Touching my hair, holding the cooper strands in their fingers,



We were all awestruck.


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3. Last Rites


Scatter my ashes in the evening

On the shore of an Algonquin lake.

Remember the time the two of us

Watched the stars come out by the thousands until

The Milky Way was sleepy

In a night so dark

We could only smell the outlines of the trees.

Scatter my ashes into the cold water and watch them float

Among the last reflections of the clouds.

Smell the hemlock and white pine.

Say my name one last time and

Rest

Under the garden of the stars.

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4. Afternoon in Idaho



Clouds are unruly here.

Completely disobedient.

Rolling onto each other, stomping across the sky

With a boldness just short of defiance.

But the day seems sure of itself,

Convinced that no matter what,

The sky will open up again

Bluer than before.


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