[ Love Like Salt ]
It lies in our hands in crystals
too intricate to decipher
It goes into the skillet
without being given a second thought
It spills on the floor so fine
we step all over it
We carry a pinch behind each eyeball
It breaks out on our foreheads
We store it inside our bodies
in secret wine-skins
At supper, we pass it around the table
talking of holidays and the sea.
[ A long way from hell ]
Two-tone motels and unlit lover's lanes,
the usual drinks, the stale, expected lines,
standard persuasions of the lips and hands,
the motions of delight, and all the time
the laughter of some demon in his ears.
Something is wrong; he blames the hour, the place,
forgetting that he was love's whipping boy
when rose-point fans were used as barricades,
before an age of women whose legs show
and who will answer simply yes or no.
To the lost dreamers, kissing in the woods
of their own legend, miracles are not new;
but he, bedroom agnostic, cannot see
with the clairvoyance of the faithful, who
blow on the spirit with the body's breath
and by that doubtless summoning of light
make good their heat. Shy of the test by fire,
he haunts the outskirts of the wilderness,
where charms, unblesses, are futile; in his brains
the tired demon sighs, try try again.
[ Night song ]
Among rocks, I am the loose one,
among arrows, I am the heart,
among daughters, I am the recluse,
among sons, the one who dies young.
Among answers, I am the question,
between lovers, I am the sword,
among scars, I am the fresh wound,
among confetti, the black flag.
Among shoes, I am the one with the pebble,
among days, the one that never comes,
among the bones you find on the beach
the one that sings was mine.
Mueller, L.
