[three poems]

 

a tiny watch across my chest

fingerwidth by fingerwidth

the new weight

 

�

 

clocks stretched to calendars

scratched days on the cell wall

 

a woman who warms soup for her grandchildren at noon

shuffling a walker in her kitchen

her insulin needle pointed to the hour

 

in the margins

our pulse

hair that falls and grows

a scalp-clock

 

autumn a pause

then gone

the plum that blooms and greens

undressing

 

up down across

the cogs of trains turn and schedule

so much water to drink

rain to come

 

�

 

over a multiplicity

I cast ballots
in brick and wood

all my hands hammering

a hand nails each nail

several blows�several hands

 

the nails bled

yellow jackets nested on the ledge

 

spent propping

my hands bolstered the sag the drop

a milipede life

 

the seventy-five year lock is stuck

 

�

 

daily.

 

comb your thoughts.

 

shave your breath.

 

swallow the blanket.

 

shovel indigo.

 

 

- - -

 

 

A Stop Under the Stars

 

 

soft mouse between electric tracks

we travelers wait

 

soft feet soft grays

we scurry

 

undulation of skin

we are soft and vagabonds

 

 

 

- - -

 

a

 

�

Geometry

and potter carpenter machinist

gardener binder

 

bicycle pedals and bifocals

rattan chairs

 

the pattern

on her shoulder

 

����� funny

����� how the foam

����� rides

����� down the cup

����� how she flips

����� the page

 

�

Geometry

of alphabet

what you build

an unfolding of leaves

from dirt

squares

look this way

what you see

layers

of this-before-that

mist

 

�

Geometry

in mosques

ribbed and arched

cascade of light

 

����� her dress blooms a Persian-carpet-Eden

 

�

Geometry

of glimpsed between

and wended

 

a view of downtown

corners of buildings

 

crooked hallway

sun at the end

the stairs in back

turn back and out

 

����� a bench for two

����� in the bending

 

�

b

 

�

sleep

the horizontal curl

arm under cheek

hair over silent wave

of breath

 

�

precise edge

 

of the river

that separates

the fifty-yard line

 

a square cut of hill

as my home

 

�

pointed joints

round fist

shrapnel

fast shards

at every angle

 

�

the body of

pinched fingers

 

dancer turning

on her stretched

axis

 

the foot arch

 

�

leaned-into curve

 

link

in the spun

gear-tooth

 

the shifting

circumference

of heart

of chest

 

�

minute-hand

across a circle

 

each tick

of small to large

orbit

 

moon to earth to sun

 

from work to home

 

accumulated looping

toward death

 

�

of hole

cylinder-shaped well

to fill

to fall

stephen hemenway, 1965-

 

 

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