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Anima 

I’ve been a thousand years asleep 
inside the untied
anchor-patterned robe 

my mother got me on 
America Island 
where I first slept off 

a slight addiction
all castaway
all prince white garden 

still 
I would only regard 
the oleanders 

only so sated 
a patient snake 
cool 

belly-down and 
waiting 

for what was bound 
to happen
to give

the way a horse might rest 
its head
in a rider’s hands 

and just to stay
like this a little longer 

let the horse be grey 
and blind and 
follow 

where that leads the aching 
animal inside me 

I will get where I am going 
when I feel thirst

Where You Will Wait For The Rest of Your Life

standing across the aisles
in the stadium of my heart

everyone is waiting for the drum
to play beloved

the sky is always bright there
that last light-before-dark

when the colder water
turns the wrists with blessings

the swallows kick
their used-up wings against

the skyline
and I am not broken-hearted

everyone I love is there
even the resurrections

they do not cry out
do not mind the spectacle

of my oars my armour
ringing toward the red

shore that I call heaven
that like anything forbidden

turns an unblurred face
on where the details fade

from this still life this
slow-moving crowd

now leaning like departure
like planetary revolution

approaching an ending
and turning around

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