the museum, the prison, the madhouse

in some long still dance of pain
you come to me
in a stone ship, your name undone
to pictures on the prow:
the lion, the hawk, the musician of the court

you stare at me with your blank eyes
and hold one hand free
waiting for the falcon to descend
or a blessing to bracelet it
litanies for suicides & priests

though I cover the mirrors
you are everywhere before me
in the leaf vein cup
of my hands, in the weathered stone
with its face of human grief

in this last asylum you turn
& turn again, bringing feathers & harps of bone
in this dream my lover, in this a death--
the delicate choosings; murder, prayer--
we are both dead beneath our masks

yet in this last we run
like the fallow deer
through the mist on the glass, the brier,
in the mouth of the wind, the wind month
where only the gulls are crying

Fourteen Names of God

Sometimes we are given maps
just a few blue lines

like the veins on our mothers' breasts
Green curves, a lizard

curled in your warm hands
this secret, all we own

Now in my dreams we set out again
towards each other

over the mine fields of this life
breathing the sweet air

For more years than you lived
I have tried to learn the words

the grasses tell each other
on summer nights

guarded by fireflies
as in that Tokyo sunset

when you tied my sash
& ran, though braced, still laughing

through the pyrotechnic flowers
towards happiness

I see you still, waving to me
far across the starfields

You have released the balloons
The ribbons slide from my hair

But I hold your faithful map
to the places of dragons

to that tender lair, the far
mountains, the acres of longing