Faster then faster this gate
gaining the advantage, crouches
the way skaters surround their arms
 
and around these dead
clinging to stone and mornings 
—by instinct the fence
 
slides your hand closer
touches your sleeves
as marble and rapture 
 
—even without this breeze
you're used to the sky
pulling you in, smaller and smaller
 
as if the Earth stopped before
let its dirt fall away, open
not yet from behind.
            
 
 
 
 
*
Step by step this small glass
coming to an end in fountains
breaks up midair
 
though it's the milk that overflows
as undertow and what's left
once the sky lets go, cries out
 
for seas it can recognize as its own
so together your cheeks will sour
and the fragrance taste from salt
 
and shoreline reaching down
unable to fall without the sound
crushing you —this rim
 
has nothing to do with the turn
holding itself in, closing down
and you dry a little at a time.
 
 
 
 
 
*
Once it heals these flowers
you feel its fragrance
smoothing your cheeks
 
though the journals are sure
dismiss your sores —it's grief
that's withering, eaten alive
 
as rainwater and marshland
inside a common love song
bringing up your knees
 
already airborne around you
and with your forehead
what happened happened.
 
 
 
 
 
*    
Whatever you soften it's the dirt
that starts though your lips
touch down and try again
 
counting off the hours
just now learning to mimic
rain —in time
 
you will smooth the ground
better than before, for years
talking babytalk —have to 
 
—this rain is not yet
what it wanted
and all the way down
 
you practice the way stones
are surrounded by dew
no longer whispers and places.
 
 
 
 
 
*
How you fold your hands, tin
is not what you can count on
for turns —off shore is still risky
 
though you squeeze this rim
the way seabirds are trained
would suddenly dip one wing
 
and with the other the soda
breaks apart as if your arms
were left in the open
 
and side to side could only guess
where you will find rest
and nothing else.