she was a careful girl, our tess

counting her sheep to sleep

the stars visible through her window,

and the seven people dear to her that she prayed for each night

but then she would fall into legend,

romantic notions and esoterica

and, in the morning, regather herself to her worldly self,

leaving her dreams behind

whereas i

i counted nothing

lived each day as if it were legend

drowning in romantic notions

holding myself up by esoterica alone

she is sad, she is happy

she is hopeful

tripped up by her roots

caught up in the moonglow

following her solitude forward to what you

what you and all of us know

watered

acknowledged

and not yet underground

held there

warm in her pocket

her hands

a light so blue, so uncanny

so early it is almost gray

so soft it is almost

still

night

so full of dreams it can only be

well,

well-deep, lit at the surface

held tight and quiet below

…and i feel at a loss

there considering him (molloy, i presume) in his borrowed room and time

and back to that day between water and hills and a road where two men met not knowing one another before

water, hills, road, or perhaps, they had

one returning, one leaving

or, perhaps, not

and my narrator, the observer, there above them, gray as the stone he huddled against

it is his memory, then, of this meeting and leave-taking

his observance and forgetting of what, perhaps, was once a death foretold

she had no recourse but to let it go

all of it

the narrow, exquisite field of his attention

wherein she felt everything there is to know of warmth and suspension

there in that silkenly-woven intercourse between them

as that intercourse constructed of webs and want and willowing and wandering

was, also, a discourse met on terms of indiscretion

she had no other recourse, really

she had to accept his volley for what it was

surgical

shattering

now hot in her hands

and stone in her chest

there

in his full-dark flatland

where the quiet is so quiet

lest the birdsong

and the shivering trees

where forever he could just hold me

and i

i could just dream

way to get a girl going

and leave her hanging…

like a ripe piece of fruit

catching light

sweetening

waiting

falling

soft

to

u

you follow me with your eyes

whilst you sleep

and

i feel

every intention

and excursion of you

“there is nothing in the desert

and no man needs nothing”

a double negative

(as the two noes cancel one another out)

generates a positive

but what, then, of three

a trinity

what i named this image

gathered from the ocean’s edge

on the third day of march

am i the crafter

or the craft

the artist or muse

or something i cannot name

but perhaps

ennui

or esoterica would serve

no man needs nothing

everyman needs everything

but what of woman

what does she need

a strong hand at the small of her back

or has she a trinity

or is she a trinity

and do you believe

those eyes

is what you say

those eyes

because they draw you inside

through the tricky green

into this woman

into her quixotic

into her magic of softslowness,

dark honey and persimmon,

contradiction, errant thought

and, yes, you arrogant beast

submission