From “Lacing”

There I was, all spread out for the taking,

bloomed wings waiting for winter

sleet. It was a long season of drinking whole

creeks and nothing else. We churned desert

into desert. What I’m saying is, neither the desert

rat nor damselfly can bear the nosebleeds: shoal-

laced face bearing down just in time to overwinter.

There I was, all spread out for the taking.

In truth, nobody wants water this thin.

One swallow, and we’re off to dig for more within

a hollow womb. This morning we sip water,

discussing the trauma in our blood: saltwater — 

there it rests, in droplets, on my breast skin,

“Oh,” I say. “My tears,” rubbing them deep within.

xi

At church I sat salvaged: I said to send me

away wearing nothing but satin and lace.

We both felt secondhand. It was knee-

length, and it wore me cheap. I couldn’t embrace

the old woman who once wore it, couldn’t see

my wrists even. And my neck, it was braced

up all in lace. The woman next to me says,

“How beautiful.” I say, “This beautiful,” then split

a hair down the middle. I lied, “I made it myself,”

then stood up to fade through painstaking

humiliation. As a child, a girl, I saw through myself

to age 45. It was then when I first noticed the aching

of my hands, how they were soon to set themselves

away — they came and went, as if they were lace for the breaking.

xiii

I was reciting Alfred, Lord Tennyson on my back,

in a canoe, floating the holiest way I knew — 

so close to ghost, and went pale for a moment

before finding myself wandering among high pines.

I didn’t expect to emerge in white already

with my heart in his hand, just as normal

as a shell rests on my chest. Didn’t expect

to hand it over so early on, at the boundary

of our properties in a dream: in the grasses

where he ended and I began. I’m feeling very still

now that we’ve crossed over into the pale,

where we are soon to thread, soon to embellish,

then loop back into each other: braided the way

we were taught to approach each other — the same way.