Two Tables

We slide into our places around the table
swift and silent as brush strokes
and the paint sighs as we
conform to the image.

The year is done. We lay out its contents
on the table – a keepsake cornucopia:
drink deep the honeycomb
of the name we share.

Oh, holy night! What joy, what rich honey
swells from the tongues of unbound hands
and unfurled lips. Wreathed in holly
and spruce, the orange and red hues
of the Blessed Virgin and Son stoop down
to share our bread and wine.

How odd that Grandfather’s stories
of the War to End All Wars
seem so bright, tonight.
How right though, too.

Sanctuary

I drove to the border of cloud and watched ghosts dance about its edge like waves on the sand. From here I can see the land bathed in thunderous sunlight; even from the shadows I can see that the world is filled with such beauty. There is a gossamer veil of mist, impermeable and unforgiving, that separates our world from theirs. Toeing the end of shadow, I can sometimes make out the holes in the sky where what lies behind pierces through – stars. I’ve tried to paint them, but white is hard to come by in this land between the highways.

(From the base of the clouds where the ghosts spy, we are probably only a contour cutting its way through mountainside and ocean shore, unalarmed and indiscriminating.) I asked the ghosts where white tones are found, and they indicated the cemetery. But, as I said, that veil is impenetrable; thus I stand in a meadow drenched in hues of grey so that the highway is indistinguishable from the patch of Queen Anne’s Lace to my right. I stand looking into a sun meant for a painter of white. I stand looking into a sun that whispers lines I don’t understand.

Part One

We cheated when we painted the stars

and placed fireflies in the black ink

around our canvas-planet.

 

A half-sky hovered in limbo as we

copied and pasted the constellations.

 

Nothing we’ve made is complete;

no love, no star, no road through the hills.

 

We smile in mirrors with half our teeth

and laugh half-heartedly at the stars

we’ve forgotten are our own failures.

 

A moth beats against the screen door:

“imagine us beneath a whole sky.”

We put our paints away, kiss goodnight,

and hold hands in our sleep.