incarnate
there is talent there, the toll
of sixteen miles or a year
spent suffering, my shoes moving
along wet paths, over empty water
over construction and girders, damp
brambles and dripping glades and the
constant lowing of boats swimming
out to sea
I am long forgotten, but
in my grey lover's arms
in my green solitude I stand
a statue shot through
with blood or salt water
or branded with a memory
of a cruel summer and what grew
trembling out of ice.
I am stone against skin.
I am all one longing.
I am the quick root in the slow soil.
—4/23/98