You wake up to drip
from your open hand
to the wax of a star
or a candle blown out
by a comet of tears
dropped in a wish
through a flaw in the night
like a child born in a mirror,
raised on its light,
plagued with vanity,
who stares at the world
through a window
on a wall
in a bedroom
where lovers' hatred
stirs a swift unfastening -
a glass button bound
on a blouse and a suit
or a leaf and an apple
red as the bars traced
by clenched fingers, carved
down staircases or spines - crooked
blasphemy in ecstacy
in scarlet cries
circling square bedrooms
looking for the window
of an open mouth swallowing
a bullet or a virgin's come
chased on the bitter crash
of lust in falling-action
and a finger on the dune
or the navel of a storm
reborn by knives in your back
and the hollow promise
shared by palms
on Sunday mornings, pressed
to the hide of their dead
livestock or the breasts of their Bibles
as words of a faith
whip the faults or the wrinkles
of the age you wear
in the shades of a wrong
or a scar or a sin
or a splinter of guilt
left in the eyes that have turned
and the lives that have vanished
through the curtains of light
tangled in the nets of clouds
sprawled over nights
your chains were shattered
on stones, when you fled
through feathered trees and silk blossoms
to kiss the wet oak
of your unfinished coffin,
singing in spite of your life
that nothing could seize
your pale harbors of Maine
or your snow-sands of St. Croix
or the eyes of your first
as they spun out of joy,
in a flicker, as they fell
into sleep.