When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that run by there is this thick paw of my life darting among the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue.

Beauty on earth so blue, even the cheese flowers a culture with no democracy... Yesterday (for example), I ate the same sandwich I eat every week: eggplant roasted in red pepper aioli, a focaccia jammed full by arugula, capers sweaty in browned butter. How have I come to love routine? I’m thirsty and abashed. The fabric of my childhood underwear triple axels in the wind—wow. The whole neighborhood watches me do emails, go to therapy: she shed revenge for forgiveness. I said it, “i forgive you” slipping like a key beneath a door, where never was a house attached. Is it beauty on earth, so blue? Each side stalled, you are touched, forstanding the sun. Its fat macula borne down grips (i wish! i saw! i fear! i heard! i dream) like an emotion. This is not a feeling. This can be, I think, a conversation.

For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children’s mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours; For those of us who were imprinted with fear like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk for by this weapon this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us For all of us this instant and this triumph We were never meant to survive. And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

Beginning my studies the first step pleas’d me so much, The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, The first step I say awed me and pleas’d me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish’d to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

Angels are unthinkable in hot weather except in some tropical locales, where from time to time, the women catch one in their nets, hang it dry, and fashion it into a lantern that will burn forever on its own inexhaustible oils. But here—shins smocked with heat rash, the supersaturated air. We no longer believe in energies pure enough not to carry heat, nor in connections—the thought of someone somewhere warming the air we breathe that one degree more . . . . In a packed pub during the World Cup final, a bony redhead woman gripped my arm too hard. I could see how a bloke might fancy you. Like a child’s perfect outline in fast-melting snow, her wet handprint on my skin, disappearing. The crowd boiling over, a steam jet: Brrra-zil! And Paris—a heroin addict who put her hypodermic to my throat: Je suis malade. J’ai besoin de medicaments. Grabbing her wrist, I saw her forearm’s tight net sleeve of drying blood. I don’t like to be touched. I stand in this mammoth parking lot, car doors open, letting the air conditioner run for a while before getting in. The heat presses down equally everywhere. It wants to focus itself, to vaporize something instantaneously, efficiently—that shopping cart, maybe, or that half-crushed brown-glass bottle— but can’t quite. Asphalt softens in the sun. Nothing’s detachable. The silvery zigzag line stitching the tarmac to the sky around the edges is no breeze, just a trick of heat. My splayed-out compact car half-sunk in the tar pit of its own shadow— strong-shouldered, straining to lift its vestigial wings.

Nature's Minor Chords The stirring of a feathery cloud May wake a thought of richest worth, The dew upon the lily's rim To deepest reverie give birth. Half glimpses caught in idle hours Of shifting lights upon a stream, Some sudden glory in the skies May give the soul a magic dream. The scent of wood-glades when glad Spring Is penciling the dainty leaves, Like subtlest music, round the heart A web of strange enchantment weaves. The robin's carol to the dawn Soothes like the answer to a prayer; The cushat's melancholy plaint May change our mood quite to despair. In Nature's wondrous orchestra, The quiver of a single strain Will poise a thought, and give the soul Most exquisite repose or pain.

Tell em to take my bare walls down my cement abutments their parties thereof and clause of claws Leave me the land Scratch out: the land May prose and property both die out and leave me peace

My body arcing across your white place we mingle color and substance wanting to mantle your cold I share my face with you but love becomes a lie as we suffer through split masks seeking the other half-self. We are hung up in giving what we wish to be given ourselves.

And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to Blossom.

THE BEES by Audre Lorde In the street outside a school what the children learn possesses them. Little boys yell as they stone a flock of bees trying to swarm between the lunchroom window and an iron grate. The boys sling furious rocks smashing the windows. The bees, buzzing their anger, are slow to attack. Then one boy is stung into quicker destruction and the school guards come long wooden sticks held out before them they advance upon the hive beating the almost finished rooms of wax apart mashing the new tunnels in while fresh honey drips down their broomsticks and the little boy feet becoming expert in destruction trample the remaining and bewildered bees into the earth. Curious and apart four little girls look on in fascination learning a secret lesson and trying to understand their own destruction. One girl cries out “Hey, the bees weren’t making any trouble!” and she steps across the feebly buzzing ruins to peer up at the empty, grated nook “We could have studied honey-making!”

I have hidden inside a sea shell but forgotten in which. Now daily I dive, filtering the sea through my fingers, to find myself. Sometimes I think a giant fish has swallowed me. Looking for it everywhere I want to make sure it will get me completely. The sea-bed attracts me, and I’m repelled by millions of sea shells that all look alike. Help, I am one of them. If only I knew, which. How often I’ve gone straight up to one of them, saying: That’s me. Only, when I prised it open it was empty.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?