ORH (Duane’s wife)

As the sunset swallows the day,

love incorporates identities.

You are the rain

who washes my dust away.

NO CROSSWISE STRIPES

Oh, Orh, that first spontaneous smile in the night:

I was lost and didn’t know it, and

then

your beacon found me

and now

I walk with no bear tracks beneath my feet

and no coyote in my path.

No eclipse darkens my meal.

No snake sheds in my sight.

And I can spend hours filling your well with a stone.

SACRIFICIAL

The praying sadist decapitates

her mate

for climax’ sake.

“love’s addition sometimes subtracts”

The successful huntress offers up

a corpse

on God’s doorstep.

“artists always execute their works”

You are that cat,

that mantis

and I the mouse,

the mate.

MANDALAS

The moon woos the maiden waves.

They waver between care and greed,

coyly approach or recede,

as moon acts an inconstant knave.

A worn and generous field

marries the magnificent sun,

and grainy children soon come

who inherit both Daddy’s gold

and their mother’s charity.

A river surrenders herself,

and her union with the gulf

enlarges her identity.

Maned clouds graze in bluebell skies.

When they’re spooked their hooves of thunder

will tear the air to flinders

and waken baby lighting’s cries.

WHISPERS

Your spirit’s in the Whispers–

I can’t go there anymore–

it’s haunting all the places

where we went before,

the movies, the restaurants,

the sidewalks and liquor store.

I’m mute in all the arias

I once used to score.

Our friends are sore reminders

of those joyous days of yore

when we formed a pair of selves

combined at the core.

But now the twins are severed–

reminiscences, a bore–

locations, open wounds–

Whispers’ silence roars.