Visions of the Actual Sky

Verde, verde. There is no god but God,
a lavendar cloud. The woman down the hill
comes out to smoke in evening light.
Her large, brain-damaged son
stands in the doorway, wide,
head hung, and a great load of firewood sprawls
on the yard. Daylight is green to the grass.

What light seared his sweet brain,
a vision fixed in Bergen, New Jersey?
The hills flow green and fantastic birds
erupt from leaves; the apple detonates in blossom.
My beloved lies in bed before dark,
naked warrior. The cells of his skull roughed up
by vandals, the burned bits stiff, with dirt adhering.
Memory like a worker's hands, layering
dirt and blood. A vision of White River Junction
when your sister drove you to the falls
and left you there, mad, a tree thief,
personal arsonist,

Better than under the bridge at any rate,
with those wild companions and little rest,
and trains on schedule force unrelenting--
remember we are dirt and blood--
all night grind stones on the track to powder.

Out there the sound of the river
plashing over rivermens' bones
the deep pool above the falls where nothing goes
over, just endlessly roiling. I hear the clack
of log runners' teeth, rocks in skulls, and bones
of animals swept downstream, and ribs of
wrecked boats, wheels and lost bicycles,
chains, engine parts, tin cans and turtles--
it all swirls round I swear I'm dumb
to say how cold the eyes that abandon us.