Living Among She-Demons:
The Poems

"Winter lies too long on country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen." -- Willa Cather, My Antonia

Everything wears out. At midpoint,
melting, ice seeps through the eaves
to hang, black drops from the kitchen ceiling.
Smells of mildew,
yams, acorn squash, carrots --
things orange, cooked for color.
"Anything," she says. "Anything but this grey."

The blower is out, short-circuited.
Heat from the furnace pools, a column
rising from the stained floor
collecting at the head of the stairs,
a gush. She kicks the blankets
and dog from bed;
wakes to nostrils turned paper.

"I want to go snowshoing. I want
to get out of here." Mad fingers
drum her forehead: thunder.
The ends of her hair split loudly,
sparking in the unlit hall.
Everything wears out. She turns:
"I can't take this any more!"

The dog, released, chain broken
bounds through peeling drifts;
layers sediment, grey into darker grey.
"What's for dinner?" Cantaloup,
marigolds, lightning. Her hair rises
off the pillow: a dry rustling.

Winterlogged

When the car stuck, buried
under plow-leavings

& the A&P ran out
of red tomatoes,
offered green (with recipes)

& the jack-pine lost
five branches to the ice
she said
have patience

sweetheart

Then we ran out of salted sand
the front steps turned toboggan run

friends, bowling pins, fell over
my coat split 2 seams
& I lost another

she said

look!
frost etchings on the glass!

crusted with a killing velvet
Chesapeake the dog left
a hair-storm on the couch.

She smiles, lights the fire
pours cognac, ignores

We bluster ass-backward toward spring

Sabbath

Sunday: clouds scatter.
Two good, naked women run
through my morning house
hair wet & streaming,
bare backsides. No need
yet for clothes. Buried
in the funnies & coffee
cups I smile
secretly on their grace:
bright sisters, who kiss
my cheeks awake, erase
last night's stale beer.

Such a warm, early time
when I don't have to share you.
We send out for
do-nuts, map
the coming day, find
the weekend's sweetest high,
don't bother dressing.
My old blue bathrobe
dusts the floor. I want
all my mornings Sundays, all
my women, naked runners.

Those Same Old Love Songs

Some nights I sleep. Others,
wakeful, listen for your rustle,
skin on sheets, your sigh
of sleep-content.

The dog
is quiet. A small sound
escapes your sleep-coccoon,
intruding. I imagine
your eyelids fluttering,
two seedlings,
bursting into dream.

Sense-ability

You have a scent
about you of
things warm and moist:
bread rising or
laundry
fresh from tub.
Sometimes you steam
spontaneously
in air cold or not.

You linger on my hands
when I leave you. All day
I smell you, fragrant
and spicy. You taste
of rain and lemons,
nothing dark or stale.

You warm, hot-water bottle
of a woman: Often
when I near you
I can hear
you growing
like a fern.

Holding Patterns

Hold it

she says
(the grey wind
throws leaves in my
face)
She bends to tie a shoe.
I hold my breath:

Is there something?
Is there anything?

She tosses her hair -
those strange bright strands
glinting copper even now,
even under the leaden sky --
kneeling there, one hand
in the dirt, she looks
up at me (afraid to breathe)
here on the woodspath
her own light shining

like the leaves
like planes

in a holding pattern, we float
suspended, waiting raindrops
(or bullets) to break our hold
on each other, the time
and the bursting fall sky.

You

You and these sunsets & jazz
bands. You in a field

batting errant softballs
all that hair of yours

caught up in a white, brimmed camp
or tumbling down in brown

and red cascades over your shoulders
(powerful, but thinner

than I remembered, when I
grabbed them to kiss your nose).

Beaver dams - you
in hipboots

washing your roommate's dog
sun and blue clouds

alternate, patterns shift.
Your face

upturned to catch
the half-moon's light

You next to me at crowded
tables. Me wondering

if all my lovelooks showed.
You in white silk and

a corduroy jacket, smiling
tapping your Old-Fashioned

to the music. In a pale
mblue nightgown that showed

your breasts, swaying in
the trailer to breakfast

and song. You and David
playing cards. Standing

by the stereo, green plants in hanging
baskets framing your faces

until I thought I would burst
with the beauty. In the hallway

or waist-high in weeds. All that weekend
meant for goodbyes

I kept trying to say
hello to you, but failed.

Living with People

The little things do us in:
her towels left soaking
on the bathroom floor,
my taste in music. We face
off across the room,
sparring, our words
touched with vitriol.
We give each other all
the wrong advice.

Still, when it's someone
else attacking, from outside,
we make a fine team,
rallying like she-bears
over the cubs of each other's pride.
When she sits in the dark
a yellow candle polishing
her yellow head to bronze, I want
to take her face between
my palms and bless her eyes.

Combat Zones

"He wouldn't," (she
says) "like you -
he's into
beauty." Her eyes
zero in;
I am target,
helpless in
the crossfire.

We live together.
Sometimes I near-
ly love her.

She wants all her
people to herself.
Poachers
will be shot on
sight. She fires
at me, a sniper
hitting home.

Later, she is softer,
clings stalk-like
to our silent walls.

She flings herself
at the man I brought home
last night, fragments
of lust spring
off her in sparks.
He glances nervous-
ly, one to the other. We
become gladiators.

I want to grab
her shoulders, scream
"Nothing! This
has nothing to do
with us!"

Always, men rise
between us, parting
our common seas like the hands
of prophets. They dangle
their bodies, that
perfect bait. She
snaps, and I recoil.

Poem Against My Will

It's none of my
business, your
faltering lovelife, your
suicides, and anyway
you're
400 miles
away. I can turn my
back & forget your flushed
face & the crackling
in your eyes, the dense
angers, the firestorms
tossed at me.

But pieces of me are stuck
all over places
I've known, cling
tenaciously to
houses where I've stopped.
I keep finding your
evidence
here -- hairs
from your yellow
dog, in my
unpacked clothes,a
book of yours
on my shelf, and
neither distance
nor fingers in my ears
can block you out.

Cold Comfort

We are:
an old pair of socks
ragged and worn;
a favorite pair
of blue-jeans
threadbare
and torn;
a two-seater bike
missing
its horn;
and I keep saying
that it doesn't really matter
and that fire
(anyway)
would burn ...

But the flame! and the light!