Because the living grow damp with motion,
sometimes the dead seem like pure air
or praise itself. But that warm mouth purpled
by last year’s plum! My Joseph, my Holly,
both laughing in a darkened sun,

I still hear you, a little. & my father so slight,
so pale, suddenly young & still, & still
so still, when did my lips begin? When
did that forehead sprouting kindness, end?
Straps of a new knapsack over my shoulders,

today I become a footpath of spent breath
wandering toward the first day of school. Those faces
on the playground, every one is new: unfettered
& moving, alive. Am I too late, already?
You are dead, & now here’s my hand,

ready finally to steady you across this rough-rooted
field, across the horn-jammed streets, the glistering
stream… A graffitied overpass is stained with dew,
& our bodies dream on both sides. Awaken
from its stupor the anesthetized dust I’ve become.

Pumping lung & sensible skin, holy sheen
of love, gather the bellows of this temple arch!
Barely brushed by the broad-leaf & combed
green by needles I can’t reach, there’s a breath.
Not a breath, but so near, so gently spirited,

its transport might as well be waterfall mist
or the red flute of fuchsia that stirs the ache
of the hummingbird into flight. See it drinking there,
fluttering the pages of its wings so quickly you can
see through them to the day on the other side.

The Beak & The Body Entire