A WINTER IN EXILE
(for John Shreffler)

We are killing again.
Flame, bullet, broadcast encircle
the sweep of cemetery timber,
the laughter of Latin prayer.
As I study in the stale air,
the refrigerated cold of this hospice
I bring a separation,
a silence chalked on blank slate.
Beside my bed, my cigarettes
lay Crow, Ariel, The Devil's Dictionary.
A King James International is bookmarked
with one lilac, one lily.
The Spanish novelist trembles as he packs.
"This is not my cause, my country," he says.
"I have no wife, no creed,
no duties but the bullwhip
and a poor man's riddle."
"You run," I tell him, "as if each battle,
each bride in birth is a requiem.
They are mathematical amusements.
They are the clatter of sculpted birds
blessed by imam, by rabbi."

In spring, in summer
sunrise melds fire to sacrifice.
I close the waterfront windows
as sandstorms rise to shatter like bone shards.
Death is sighing somewhere else.
I have been educated in betrayal,
in the sheen of language as enchantment.
Dazed, doused in spiritless endeavour,
I bury my father's whisper, his father's bayonet
beside the tumbrel and the Amen Tree.
Raging, caged under house arrest
the Spanish novelist covers the dining table
with drafts of paragraphs for the Suspect's Diary.
"Release without record," he says "is a looter's con.
I've seen imagery, interpretation narrow
to laws of theology and coalition.
I've watched a spiral of seven crows
trace the contrail wisp of warplanes,
the shimmering, sunset wake of gunboats."
Like dead ambassadors of family, church, state
The Spaniard and I wander,
wasted in roles of conscience.
Bridges in flames beneath a fogbound moon,
the hoax of heat lightning
ease the autumn drill of departure.
A river reports its destruction to the sea.
Leaving is easy.


DONE BEFORE THE FROST

In the hour of passage,
you rest nearer death
than sweeter details of measured days.
Birds, like blown debris, settle to the balcony.
Breakfast and dinner plates spill the tables.
Delicate, darkened features
of mascara, bruise, malnutrition
shade blanket and pillow.
Firetrucks fly the autumn streets below us,
their silent, hustling lights neon colours in a tube.
A powdery tangle of pipe, lighter, lipstick
slops through the broken clasp of a purse.
There are three photographs in this room:
a German nude, tangled in rope and wire,
longboats beached beneath an overcast sky,
you and I, foolish in a hometown bar.

The redeye flight you've missed
is somewhere east of us,
rising and banking away from the city.
Rote recall is the strangest vocation.
I've boarded planes on two birthdays
to view the facts of what you are, what you are not.
I pull the covers from your shoulder,
baring you.
The rough, slipping sheet brings your nipples erect.
You murmur shivering, asleep
as palm, as lips, as tongue cover them.
Muted,
the television flickers through cable comedy,
Hollywood product,
cartoons.

In passage block by block
the seeping light of sunrise
shimmers on polished high rise walls.
My hand runs your spine, soft ass to shoulder,
as I whisper through the drape of nodding head:
"I've ordered breakfast. Try to eat."
Raw, sour,
you answer and ease away:
"If we fucked last night I hope one of us was good."
I am drifting though-
unbuttoned, barefoot,
groggy with pot smoke and brandy,
"The check is in my jacket," I say.
"I leave late tonight. Tomorrow, if you want."


CHILDREN OF THE WAR

"Wars end. Hostilities go on forever."
                             -Pablo Picasso

Spires of ruined cities
swirl in autumn wreaths of yellowing leaves.
Cemetery shafts of marble, of oak
slip in erosion mud of oil slick and levee spill.
Homes shuttered for sleep burn as beacons, as warnings.
Death is sweet recall.

"I work the neon hours, " she said.
"Scratching out salary plus tips for a place at his side.
I love his wake up kiss and his cock,
the broken boy, the barstool baritone."
"She loves me for a listening phrase chattered
over beer and Sunday stew,"  he said.
"It was a line. It was a joke.
It was punctuation in patter
after a three day weekend.
I like her casual style,
the front seat sex, a Court Street view."
"I remember he held me on his shoulders
as we cheered the militia in review.
I remember his stride, his silhouette in a suit
as he helped me to my feet in Seven Stones Casino."

Rumours fly the corner crowds:
All flights have been grounded. The Navy has run aground.
Refuse of leaflets, ribbons, banners litter a sniper's line.
EMS and police sirens rise and wail in parade.
Death is gliding, like a crow on the wing.

"I have two dreams," he said,
"one is this city, the other is jinxed if I tell.
After school and the Navy,
four years on the job,
I don't sleep-I satisfy."
"He offered me money and a medical plan,
doctors happy with either decision," she said.
He said, "I can honor a judgement any way it goes."
"I love this baby," she said.
"But I'll teach it cunning and despair.
This child will suffer the daily truth
of his mother's injury, his bastard sign."

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