THE UNFOLDING CENTER (excerpts)

10

The sky lightens behind the heart-shaped

leaves. While we slept, a truck filled

with plutonium lumbered down the highway.

At six a.m. the willow branches swing,

and I tilt on waves. I will tilt when I rake

gravel, uncoil a hose, loosen the spigot.

Green are the lilac and willow leaves;

now my tongue runs along your scar,

our sighs bead, and we wick into flame.

Reflected on glass, a row of track lights

is superimposed on cordate leaves

outside the window. A smallmouth bass

aligns with a cottonwood shadow

in the pond. To wait is to ache, joy,

despair, crave, fret, whirl, bloom, relax

at the unfolding center of emptiness.

I tilt on the outgoing tide of my breath.

11

“Dead? How can that BE?”

           a woman sobs as

                      the airplane taxis to the gate;

flames on water; the whir

           of a hummingbird behind my eyelids;

                      these are means

by which we live: joy, grief, delight—

           straw mushrooms

                      rising into the visible world;

wisps of rabbitbrush are all

           that remain of generals’ dreams;

                      a branch of a river rejoins a river;

flip a house and it’s shelter,

           flip it again and cabinets

                      open, wine is poured, dogs yap,

people joke and laugh;

           sandhill cranes swirl

                      and descend into a cornfield;

we ampere each other;

           a bus stops: a child gets off,

                      starts waking on a red-clod road:

nothing in sight

           in all directions;

                      a rose flame under our skin,

hummingbird whirring its wings;

           a rose flame,

                      nothing in sight, in all directions: