with her moves in hues of soft blues,
gathering rainwater in walnut shells for her children
and her neighbor’s children.

with her voice a smooth, open door,      
music from other rooms, sometimes her voice in cursive,  
mostly her voice of listening.  

with her teeth of beautiful ruins,
teeth of mosque and minaret shards,
sweet cardamom pods at the bottom of her tea.  

with her light the first echo of morning,    
light of inshallah whirling above her head      
as shamans dance inside her well.    

with her eyes of velvet light and dark,
the whole lake loop and such beyond itself, yet sometimes
just two small stones, eyes of a mother without a mother.

with her laugh of laughs of hammocks in the tamaracks,
laugh of sweet date-treats,
laugh of leaves sweeping wind into the sea.

with her belly a sackcloth of fluffy russets,
belly of six placentas, six umbilicus,    
belly of doctor’s orders, la 'akthar.  

with her hair of squishy, squishy-squish,
hair of pumpernickel and sponge, in night mist,        
hair of nest for crows and pickle.

with her hands of sweaty and spittle and tissues,
and the epistle she opens from her muezzin,          
it’s about the nurses, so few, the sick-folk, so many.    

Grandmother, imagined—with her mouth a tenuous orchid,
mouth a candle half-lit, half-lost, half-doused?—
mouth of doubts she is not sure of and doubts she is.  

I speak midnight-earth,            
    my body needs the darkness,

though thank you for lunch,
    the way light enters a raindrop.

Boon detail—sometimes I find treasure.
    Doom detail—sometimes I find treasure,

a cypress dangles above the scree-sloped shores.            
    Again, what time do the prophets arrive?

Somewhere it’s that kind of day: the wind’s trying to blow open the door,        
    just knock, we’ve been waiting for you.        

Or magnetic north? True north? The scent of woodsmoke riding thermals—
    left to the sweet palm groves, right to blue water.      

Somehow, it’s this kind of day: the wind’s blown open the door,
    and each ocean gains each other in salt-time.  

You make the meaning—Sartre faith.        
Live with the outcomes—Camus faith.

For the faithful, maybe test your fate. Gobble a tarantula,      
guzzle a piranha, ghazal a piñata—ayahuasca faith.              

Sometimes we masturbate, seduce faith. Religion, where men  
put their loneliness, their homes, Holmes—Oliver Wendell faith.

She calls it love, the ice cube slides. He calls it quits, the ice-cube sinks.
A hot stove, warm pan, ice-blue ice cube—melting faith.

A city of light spills across the water, field of bright coins,
field of bright corn. Flesh and all the glass candles—Rorschach faith.

Sometimes a sonata or soul, rhythm-and-roll, even poems. Such
musical notes plummet from God’s lap to you—Amadeus faith.

Here, impasto, violent swirls in violet hues. The effects
of light on a woman’s body, my body—Starry Night faith.

Into this life, we come with nothing, leave with nothing.
Love the things you love for what they are—Frost faith. And sleep.