I am tired tonight and cannot write

dinner's eaten
I've showered and watched
the TV.
I've sat with my sister
and thought about things.
a failed day
for the politics
of fantasies.

but this is how it is
the end of my week
my body full
of voices.
histories are weighty, sweaty.

maybe tomorrow I will
push them into the sky
all those words, worlds
dissipating into pieces.

"In general, every country gets the language it deserves"

How about my country-

the continent of my person?

what language fills my mouth 

and moves my teeth and tongue?

What words have I earned

and invented out of necessity?

Which words are for beauty,

unfurling in a simple spectrum?

What message was already written on my bones

in a tight script? 

And how do we translate original, personal words?

We are left with a language without audience.

Speaking Venetian

Eunice makes gnocchi and a biting

Fresh sauce.  Old stone buildings insulate

Muffle street sound and sidewalks.

She speaks and speaks

And her apartment absorbs her voice

As it always has.  Her clothing and couches

Jars and coffee tins, framed pictures, vases, knit things

Everything soaks in Eunice’s voice and scent,

True students giving themselves up to a teacher,

Despite the endlessness of education. 

Men I don't know, part I.

My grandfather died during a bombing of Karlovac, not from the bombs but from the sound From fright He died on the stairs a bare courtyard in the center of the house Like a lung It took him a few days to get buried because of the continuous war What war isn’t continuous Human fear that eddies Refugees lived there and left their clutter, sour bedding pink rubber boots they used the woodstove there was no electricity and I wondered how far they had come and gone and if they were dead too The only thing not stolen from the house was my grandfather’s books Learned language He brought my mother butterflies pinned to velvet cloth for school projects He worked as a forester In a small village he met my grandmother They knew they would hate each other it was only a matter of There are pictures of Ivan in Boston when he came to America for a visit Knee high socks The bus from South station took him all over The canyons and birds Meeting Americans What did he think before he died My mother before she died Ivan spoke three languages I can’t picture his face I know he looked into mine before he died Wind chimes in the court yard The floor bends inward it will fall through eventually What a beautiful rare house a space that makes thinking magic Ivan took pictures of my mother and trees and the bare winter Always your daughter Pictures, boxes of saw-edged pictures Last thing he thought of before he died.

Mediating a wake

The last dream before I woke up this morning,

The last pull from my second life into the raw first,

Was my lawyer with his arms wrapped around me,

just, breathing.

And I remember that Gandhi was a lawyer

Before he ever saved anyone.  

Sometimes imagination really takes you by the (metaphorical) balls and demands you wake up.

Every Body makes art,

Covering canvasas

Typing, touching-

No museums or publishers

Necessary.

You imagine the undulating relief of the forest;

The dark, gabled houses of endless asking;

The filling of empty boxes with the trinkets of memory;

The future that moves like dunes, wind in the Sahara;

The possibilities of man and woman;

Daily navigations of disaster and discretion:

You are worthy of the finest receptions

The champagne and congratulations

You are the center of genius and creation

Everyday, without exception.

You make your own escape

From the windowless rooms of have to

And can’t do, and you do it with the truest color.

I look familiar

I’ve been to Serbia

To Bosnia

And Croatia

I svugdje

Sam “nasa Maja”

Because I love

Food, white stone,

Thick woods

The faint smell

Of smog liquor winter

Urine in alleyways

Soup in the afternoon

Because I know the

Formalities of church

Crocheted doilies, miniature gilt frames

Because I grew up ironing underwear

And athletic socks

Because I know which men

Will push you around

Because my hips are wide

And I have a mole on my cheek

My eyes are old

And savagely European

Because I wear tall boots and

black pants and gold jewelry

Whenever possible

Because I smoke cigarettes

At cafes and will not say no

To coffee or kisses

Because I have stood overlooking

Sarajevo,

I am Theirs

I am their Maja.