Door in the Mountain. Jean Valentine

the fire and the window

      hot on the left side sharp on the right

      something wrong Born wrong

      cleaves to itself deflects you

      Still, someone wrote something here in the dirt

      and I sip at the word—

       The Night Sea

      The longing for touch

      was what they lived out of

      not mainly their bodies

      For that friend

      we walked inside of the night sea

      shedding our skins—

       The Shirt

      The shirt was going to be red:

      he had to have this shirt—no other—

      to stay alive, in prison.

      We were setting about to cut, and sew,

      but the cotton, they said, was sacred

      —we had to fold it and give it back to them.

      Then, even though you're so much lighter, and it was white,

       you gave him yours…

       One Foot in the Dark

      People forget

      Don't forget me

      You

      the only white head

      in the crowd of young men

      live oaks

      waiting to be let out of the Visiting Area.

       A weed green

      A weed green

      with a black shadow village under it

      and then browngray dirt then a browngray stick

      stuck on a stone

      which has its own black shoah moat to the north

      how hungrily life like an o goes after life

       Fears: Night Cabin

      Snake tick

      black widow

      brown recluse

      —The truck last night on 79

      dragging a chain

      —A cloud

      rounding slowly

      at the window

      —The wick unlit

      curled cold in the kerosene lamp.

       so wild

      so wild

      I didn't notice for a long time

      under your ten skins

      your skull

      —When life

      for the fourth time touched my eyes

      with mud and spit

      and groaned

      —Then

      I saw your and my fingerbones

      outstretching in the thin blue planet water.

       I have lived in your face

      I have lived in your face.

      Have I been you? Your mother? giving you birth

      —this pain

      whenever I say goodbye to thee

      —up to now I always wanted it

      but not this

       A goldfinch in the rain

      A goldfinch in the rain

      a broken bird-feeder on the branch above her

      its roof an inverted V without any floor

      uncradle rocking

      In the Visiting Area:

      rocking:

      not touching

       The grain of the wood

      The grain of the wood

      tidemarks on the beach

      galaxies

      fingerprints

      The spark inside my ribcage

      leaping at your voice

      under my skin and away in the knuckley powder…

       The push or fly

      The push or fly of the snow

      here in the free woods

      Your letter last night

      —lost eight weeks in the prison anthrax rules—

      and who knows what push/fly

      at Avenal—

      “…mostly freezing weather

      and they don't give you anything warm to wear…”

      at Avenal,

      if I could,

      I would nurse you…as I have,

      as you have me, spring weather.

       I would be

      I would be thick soft fleece

      around your shoulders

      your ill heart at Avenal

      a circle around your head

      quiet against the noise, shade from the lights

       Avalon

      Avalon,

      isle of the dead, in the west, where heroes go

      after they die—

      Avenal

      where do your young men go?

      hot coal in no one's mouth, dying day by day

      to Avenal—

       Do you remember?

      Do you remember? my mouth black and blue

      from your starved mouth—

      I didn't know anything. I didn't know I was from

      the way life was before…your fire skin

      soft as a horse's black muzzle,

      soft, soft black hair

      of love, white hair on your head

       —Now they have muzzled you.

      That life, we couldn't stop, the sun went down,

      spring snow was coming was coming

       Advent Calendar

      In the tiny window for December 21st,

      the shortest day,

      a little soldier, puppet on a stick,

      or is the stick his sword? He looks quite gay.

      Out my window, the woods: terrarium:

      I