Two Poems

Your Maker

A room large enough
Only for a bed
Desk and bookcase
Deer antlers on one wall
On the other a picture
Of an arbutus
And a boy of ten
Smoking a cigarette
His smile guarded
Because of two missing teeth
He is a boy stuffed into history
Remembered if only for that harmed face
So human who could look away?

Step back from the picture
Turn to the desk
Where someone has left a note
For you to read
All it says is:
Permanent Rain
Strawberries
Your Maker
Leave the door open
When you go.
This is the ruled glass of time
It is borderless
And as rigid as a thought

 

Lorca's Grave

I think of a worm
Inching toward light
And the euphoria of
That first puncture of air
Lorca the lover
Stands in a field
Amongst working oxen
Poems plucked
From the heat of animals

For Lorca writing poems
Means walking up a steep hill
And resting at the railing
Of the important house there
Sin opens a rose

He wears a bow tie
And flannel suit despite the August heat
In one hand he carries a notebook
Behind the house are more hills
And he walks into those
Away from the olive fields
Says love is a shadow

Weeks later
He's arrested
Driven into those same hills
Forced to stand
In the car's headlights
No one hears the gunshot
Except for a sleeping ox
That raises its head at the noise
But doesn't hurry away