Mary Jane White

tendril

88

Up a running scaffold
Of braided thought
Of nothing but braided thought


89

No wish to contemplate recent events
Running with the light up a stake
I can no longer see
Busy


90

No longer any more support
Unusual how I come to be stock still
Within the world’s garden
The dirt firm
A warm table
Where a puddle draws
A visible shimmer


91

A near small sun
At night a moon
A falling streak


92

My own thinning light which
Draws the sea’s horizon


93

A steady greatness
Moisture circling
Driven by light & lack of light
My face & the back of my head
Track this


94

Up here
Catcalls down there
Ever the difference that turns the worm
Yes


95

The mind runs blindly so far
I might walk past it carrying my fear
Even in broad daylight
With all the body speaking
Halt
Go no farther
You have no business here

You have no more support
No time to think


96

No understanding when life
Is no more an individual matter


97

But out of the light off the sea
But around each seed’s core a tendril with no more
Support than that
But before each spring the worm
Silently breaks the earth & listens
It wanders
Without error


98

The fields here may soften
Then crumble
Falling in
Collapsing under tendrils
Determined by light in their direction
& close on every human doorway


99

Shadowed by hill or valley
My doorway darkened by a crown of tendrils
Thick fallings away of blossom


100

Grudgingly unresponsive any more to light


101

Taste me & touch me
As a lost expectation


102

& grudgingly


103

Dawn is yet unopened
But can be imagined
Always the hopeful
Whine between woman & man leaks out
Over the small space


104

The unnumbered leaves
Quivering in their private numberings
Of the present tense


105

No admittance by your leave
As you forbid all choice


106

I am no longer trying to make out the meaning
Of rustling so near


107

& cursed be any name whispered
As one of your wretched excesses


108

As the tables
Turn in the sun & empty
& the song of two to be reunited
Of two woven who make a perfect pattern
Leads on seductively
So I remain blinded by sea-light
Wandering back into the dark
Of my own accord


109

Sunlight & all that filters through it
With a single glance


110

But a single glance in passing is largely weakness
You turn me inside out
You turn me outside
& all that is grown inside of me uselessly
So sunlight fails to move me
So night plants itself inside me wispily


111

My ears burn
Your death something I would wish