Under the hayflower
falling, we found her
seated, selling woven stuffs
in skirt relief
(delicate bird-lice
wax left
besting indigo bleeds).
Patterns, with the needs
of the wearer,
recede. Under the hayflower
falling, she felt
the fabric
folklore, soft
on the tops
of her knees, her feet,
light as lighting the morning
fire’s footfalls, dyed
vast shades of dawn,
twice as deep.
The future pales
to lavender
the way sunsets do,
the edge of the earth
the door
day departs through.
Shifting hearts, like low
dunes, still warm
with afternoon,
welcome night, unfixed
as new-sown stars.
In need of a cloud
to carry us—
the kind that keep
a hold and move
like the wide world,
so imperceptibly slow,
past planets small
as stars, with the earth
so far below somehow
life stills,
swirls of white
on blue
obscuring the shapes
of landmasses
we learned in school.
The effort, a deep down-hinge of wings,
a sea sigh
we feel
as osprey rise
ever higher, into thinner atmosphere
and we can’t remember, sand
in the corners of our eyes.
Night and herons pass
between trees,
the intermittent bus
with its dim
foci approaching.
Home by unfamiliar
roads, in the clearing
the low moon
shows. Routine
passengers drift
near sleep. Alert
to passing time, I am
awake with the wait.
In hammocks you collect
ceilings, my hairweight
household (especially us
sigh gnats—littlemouthed
to sound
to us
like much). All thin fingers,
you spin wooly air—
not so high,
not quite as carefully,
whine lazy passersby—
the cat, a sound wave,
a broom, the usual roomful
of interested
in the day to day, the way
webs take influence easily.
