Blue, the mountains are blue here today,

Blue like the blood in my veins before it sees the light of day.

For so many now, I’ve been ripped open in mourning,
All my clothes shredded,
Hanging off my body, limp, is the loss.

I am almost empty

Before you slice into the fruit

I appear full and fleshy with disguise, discover inside,

Dried up seeds, nothing but

Unrecognizable ash

Of what once was.

 

It’s really such a joke sister

Because I never learned how build the fires full

And there are remains without any structure

So from where did they fall?

 

All these years an architect building building building

To break down the bricks piled top me,

And then I turned half turned not knowing how and why only when

And for so many months pulled apart to grief.

 

My lover O lover of the nowpast,

The mountains are blue
When they should be green,

Remember, when I tried to tell you about that onion, myself,

I discovered to be circular going inward into winding wetness feeding female

Then split down the middle you cut me like a cantaloupe with an axe

And still in separate hands I balance the pieces

Fool that I am,

On one foot,

Weighing the losses.

 

I am so tired.

It is awfully hard now to tell the building from the breaking,

And so bad I want to simultaneously be

Cat tailed clear-eyed beach tree,

And cast ashes,

Over the deep blue sea.

~ August 1982