With Love For the Dead

Now, in the dead season
of words & ideas, things,
I come back to your letters
like a scientist; disassembling,

passionless, a speculator
with little eyes. Your notes
like "an axe for the frozen
sea within" cannot coax

me from this letter, Anne.
This year, in the time the dead
have made, I've considered
your many little Christs. You said

that he wept, broke his fast,
died & was put in a cave,
woke into the dark
company of rats, forgave

everyone...then he was gone.
Deep within your Christ-days,
I find the emaciated
dying God to whom you pray;

A stone tower, a yellow star,
A hothouse flower shrouded by night.



Fl–x   [BL/´DE] '94