Litany for Permission
If the highest goal
is do no harm,
what a wonder we’re
begun.
Since the shovel’s low
turn of mud
cutting the earth-
worm in two
loosens
the ground
on which we stand
from which we come
to breathe.
Awash
in mamma’s
scarlet sea, with first cries cleft
from injury, we learn
what deliverance
means. To tourniquet
requires a bind
stauncher
than the heart—
the one it’s tied
to save—
mine is failing
all new
ways and always
a surprise to find
I’m the one
to blame
who bled the flame
that fueled the fire
of knob-cone pines,
entirely.
Can’t
deny I let
sparks smolder, kindle and—
by this thinking:
the seed
will let
go the tree the world
will angle
toward
light, the husband
grazed
my shoulder did
not trans-
egress but did
not pass
on any knob
of my back
and forth
distances
span endless:
want and what’s not
for the taking
and since he’s not
why
do opposite
spins pull two in line
one explosion
of heat floods
from every
star,
dying ever
since we saw
it first the light was good but now
it’s not
I’m not
either supposed to
stroke it soak it
up so tell me
from the start
how the word was
stop
