Eternity

Eternity is not grains of sand

o belles etoiles.  Ce n’est pas

leaves or ants or hydrogen atoms.

It is the unquantifiable quantity

l’asymtote de nos âmes.

The ways that water can pass

over a stone.

Les chemins des vents a travers le forêt.

For her

She is a piece of water

an unwashed apple, a

blue and spinning star,

a ribbon tied without

hands, a book with only one word.

She is a candle, an origami

flame, all white and red and

awake.  Heavy bread, burned

on every side.

She is a cup of sand,

a balloon, sewn into the stitch

of the horizon—

holding both sea and sky at once.

Auto-Blazon

my legs are broken pieces of winter

my arms the wooden echo of my penitent father

my eyes are my mother’s geometry

all lines and angles and unraised hands

my hands are unripened apricots and

my thoughts are a hungry bird

I am a seasonal color, quietly stitched

on the underside of gravestones

my blood is papal breath

my knees are the feet of my heart

I am an unpainted Picasso

monochromatic, three dimensional,

a bear, a wave, a phosphorescent dream.

Otoliths

In the blueblack waters of
South America, there is a fish
with a rock in its head.

The natives cut the heads
like oysters and with fish
hooks make jewelry out of

the small stones.  They fish
in local markets for dumb Americans
or pale Belgians that will buy
the wire and rock to decorate the heads
of their fat daughters.

The daughter, all blush and entitlement
puts the jewelry in a ballerina box.  The
native puts the money in coffee cans.

And both the native and the daughter forget
the rocks were put there for balance.