Gifts
D.D.
Books, your books, and blocks
of darkest chocolate on my desk,
luscious, viscious.
And the vintage paper doll kit,
“Instant people, for your first house!”—
conjoining wedding cake skirts and stovepipe hats and cats
of the tribe of the continuous tail
and real nesting Russian dolls, her joke about the inner life,
where it gets women…
And, How to Make a Fire:
pre-soaked logs from the A&P,
little rocker drawn up so close the rockers smoke—
Incendiary queen.
Her subjects.
The List
D.D.
In the day’s last light eye-high there
less than a hand’s reach into the holly
the fledgling’s stiff legs chopsticks jut up
out of the twig bowl where
how to say it
the red crested head was
ground to spice the moment of your vanishing
so loud ringing the void so complete it
pulverized this fragile antenna so pungent
it swept on through all the world’s creatures
divining as your poems did their course
Then all night long
a windy bush-shaped sharp red song
scorching the dark scolding
Who hung the homemade suet
that beckoned my enemies close?
This was my turf my zone my loves
my puffy tattered earthly home—
You helped? Now look what you’ve gone and done!
Oh bird-gone-into-the-dark
who sets my whole life-list aflame
at the mention of your public name
