Only Skin

And there was a booming above you at night

Black airplanes flew over the sea

And they were lowin' and shifting like beached whales, shelled snails

As you strained and you squinted to see

The retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry

You froze in your sand shoal

Prayed for your poor soul

Sky was a bread roll

Soakin' in the milk bowl

And when the bread broke

Fell in bricks of wet smoke

My sleeping heart woke

And my waking heart spoke

And there was a silence you took to mean something

Run, sing

For alive, you will evermore be

And the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulking has gone east

While you're left to explain them to me

Released

From their hairless and blind cavalry

With your hands in your pockets

Stubbily running

To where I'm un-fresh

Undressed and yawning

Well, what is this craziness?

This crazy talking?

You caught some small death

When you were sleepwalking

It was a dark dream, darling

It's over

The fire breather is beneath the clover

Beneath his breathing, there is cold clay forever

A toothless hound dog chokin' on a feather

But I took my fishing pole

Fearin' your fever

Down to the swimming hole

Where there grows a bitter herb

That blooms but one day a year

By the riverside, I'd bring it here

Apply it gently

To the love you've lent me

While the river was twistin' and braiding

The bait bobbed

And the string sobbed

As it cut through the hustling breeze

And I watched how the water was kneading so neatly, gone treacly

Nearly slowed to a stop in this heat

In the frenzy, coiling flush 'long the muscles beneath

Press on me

We are restless things

Webs of seaweed are swaddling

And you call upon the dusk of the musk of a squid

Shot full of ink

Until you sink into your crib

Rowin' along

Among the reeds, among the rushes

I heard your song

Before my heart had time to hush it

Smell of a stone fruit bein' cut and bein' opened

Smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smokin'

And when the fire moves away

Fire moves away, son

Why would you say

I was the last one?

Scrape your knee

It is only skin

Makes the sound of violins

And when I cut your hair

And leave the birds all of the trimmings

I'm the happiest woman among all women

And the shallow water stretches as far as I can see

Knee deep, trudgin' along

The seagull weeps, "So long"

Humming the threshing song until the night is over

Hold on, hold on

Hold your horses back from the fickle dawn

I have got some business out at the edge of town

Candy weighin' both of my pockets down

Till I can hardly stay afloat from the weight of them

And knowin' how the common folk condemn

What it is I do to you to keep you warm

Bein' a woman, bein' a woman

But always up the mountainside, you're clambering

Gropin' blindly, hungry for anything

Pickin' through your pocket lining, well, what is this?

Scrap of sassafras, eh, Sisyphus?

I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain

Little sister, he will be back again

I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain

Spiders' ghosts hang, soaked and dangling

Silently from all the blooming cherry trees

In tiny nooses, safe from everyone

Nothing but a nuisance, gone now, dead and done

Be a woman, be a woman

Though we felt the spray of the waves, we decided to stay

Till the tide rose too far

We weren't afraid 'cause we know what you are

And you know that we know what you are

Awful atoll, oh, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow

Bawl, bellow, sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow

Toddle and roll, teethe an impalpable bit of leather

While yarrow, heather, and hollyhock awkwardly molt along the shore

Are you mine?

My heart?

Mine anymore?

Stay with me for a while

That's an awfully real gun

And though life will lay you down

As the lightning has lately done

Failing this, failing this

Follow me, my sweetest friend

To see what you anointed in pointing your gun there

Lay it down, nice and slow

There is nowhere to go

Save up

Up where the light, undiluted, is weaving

In a drunk dream

At the sight of my baby, out back

Back on the patio

Watching the bats bring night in

While elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white wend

Endlessly towards seashores, unmapped

Last week, our picture window

Produced a half-word

Heavy and hollow

Hit by a brown bird

We stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake

And pant and labor over every intake

I said a sort of prayer for some rare grace

Then thought I ought to take her to a higher place

Said, "Dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you

And though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"

Then in my hot hand, she slumped her sick weight

We tramped through the poison oak, heart-broke and inchoate

The dogs were snapping and you cuffed their collars

While I climbed the treehouse, then how I hollered

Well, she lain as still as a stone

In my palm for a lifetime or two

Then saw the treetops

Cocked her head, and up and flew, when

Back in the world that moves often

According to the hoarding of these clues

Dogs still run roughly around

Little tufts of finch-down

And the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland

But his hand in my hand made 'em hale and harmless

While, down in the lowlands, the crops are all coming

We have everything

Life is thundering blissful towards death in a stampede

Of his fumbling, green gentleness

You stopped by, I was all alive

In my doorway, we shucked and jived

And when you wept, I was gone

See, I got gone when I got wise

But I can't, with certainty, say we survived

Then, down and down

And down and down

And down and deeper

Stoke without sound

The blameless flames

You endless sleeper

Through fire below

And fire above

And fire within

Sleep through the things couldn't have been

If you hadn't've been

And when the fire moves away

Fire moves away, son

And why would you say

I was the last one?

All my bones, they are gone, gone, gone

Take my bones, I don't need none

Cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on

Suck all day on a cherry stone

Dig a little hole, not three inches round

Spit your pit in a hole in the ground

Weep upon the spot for the starving of me

Till up grow a fine, young cherry tree

When the bough breaks, what'll you make for me?

A little willow cabin to rest on your knee

Well, what'll I do with a trinket such as this?

Think of your woman who's gone to the west

But I'm starvin' and freezin' in my measly, old bed

Then I'll crawl 'cross the salt flats to stroke your sweet head

Come across the desert with no shoes on

I love you truly or I love no one

Fire moves away

Fire moves away, son

Why would you say

That I was the last one?

Last one

Clear the room, there's a fire, a fire, a fire

Get goin'

And I'm going to be right behind you

And if the love of a woman or two, dear

Could move you to such heights

Then all I can do is do

My darling, right by you