He plucks silver coins from her eyes,
Pulls skeins of silk scarves from her sleeves,
And from her mouth he draws a word.

Hands certain as scissors,
Along seams of air he cuts patterns
And links generations of paper dolls.

They dance in long accordion rows,
Then meet the winds he summons
With fingers precise as scalpels.

Paper dolls scatter like snow flakes.
His touch is cold, the wound in her side aches,
Beyond him she sees the mountains of his heart.

i uncover yeats’ last poems & plays.
within its cover two small stars:
one blue. one silver.

“What on the threshold stands?”

“Whence did all that fury come?”

a woman carries the world
on top of her head.

i create small designs of mountains & suns;
see three hawks glide.

the blue corridor.
the steel door.

today i will visit the sea.
today i will walk upon the sand.

water surrounds. i am cloud.
i am wave.

on the western coast i dream
of the northern skies.

light. motion.
white. yellow. green.
red. blue. violet. yellow-rarer.

fall back. continue.
rise. upward.
reason. imagination.

1.
twins  the ones she told us were murdered
floated through the telling so many times

she believed she saw them dragged to the river’s flat surface
that calm spring day  barbed wire for collars

twelve  she said  pretty little girls
tossing slippers and stockings up the sandy bank

tucking hems into their bloomers  wading the shallows
at the cowpath’s end  water lapping the willows

barehanded man whipping wire into lassoes
spinning those girls like sugar  tied back to back

2.
shuffling old man  thick-tongued  sad
coins sticky in his open hand
she said he tried to kiss her

she said she tried not to think
of twins two weeks in the water
strung together like beads

silver spilling from his fingers
he said  closer
hand under her dress  she said like water rising

she felt his tongue each time
she slipped a hidden nickel from under the shaving soap
her papa left behind  she said if she dropped the nickel

the old man’s words rolled under the door
gotta little honey by the stockyard  comes to my room
likes my hand on her  sweet little leg

she said she’d kept the taste of metal on her tongue
fingerprints on her thigh  old as she was
said the twins never would quit turning in her mind

washing into the river  out of the river
hair tangled in the willows
just like wanting  she said  just like words

Bent to the lamplight, you raise the dead from the page,
your voice stepping over forgotten words
like one who, visiting a lost garden after years,
finds with a foot the trace of pebble path
and a few old roses blooming in the weeds.

It’s a poem you are reading, written in a language
you barely understand, the language your grandmother spoke
but never explained, and you are reading aloud
to conjure onions and potatoes in sour-broth soup,
white wet sheets on the line, her lace-up corset

and lace-up shoes reserved for Sunday mass.
Now you are reading the poem in your own
language, but you are no longer in the room”
Baba is alive again, and your head is bent,
the light from your reading lamp lost in the words of your hair.