Door in the Mountain. Jean Valentine

       How have I hurt you?

      How have I hurt you?

       You saw me.

      I dream I am you full of fear and dread with me in your arms :my cloth love holding your breath

      How have I hurt you

       You saw me

      I didn't see you

       Do flies remember us

      Do flies remember us

      We don't them

      we say “fly”

      say

      “woman”

      “man”

      you gone

      through my hands

      me through your hands

      our footprints feeling

      over us

      thirstily

       You drew my head

      You drew my head

      the back of my head

      my neck stem

      you made my head a charcoal skull

      and even the skull

      is turned away

      no eyes

       The little, faintly blue clay eggs

      The little, faintly blue clay eggs

      in the real grass nest you made and sent to me

      by hand:

      It runs through my thighs, even now,

      that you thought of it! for a little while we thought of nothing else. Frozen little couple in caps, frozen beaks—

       Happiness (3)

      The moment you turned to me on W 4th St.

      Your gentleness to me

      The hard winter grass here under my shoes

      The frost

      I knelt in the frost to your parents

      The warm

      light on the right hand side of your face

      The light on the Buddha's eyelids

      I knelt to my parents

      Their suffering How

      much sleep there was in sleep How no

      suffering is lost

       Letter

      The hornet holds on to the curtain, winter

      sleep. Rubs her legs. Climbs the curtain.

      Behind her the cedars sleep lightly,

      like guests. But I am the guest.

      The ghost cars climb the ghost highway. Even my hand

      over the page adds to the ‘room tone': the little

      constant wind. The effort of becoming. These words

      are my life. The effort of loving the un-become. To make the suffering

      visible. The un-become love: What we

      lost, a leaf, what we cherish, a leaf.

      One leaf of grass. I'm sending you this seed-pod,

      this red ribbon, my tongue,

      these two red ribbons, my mouth, my other mouth,

      —but the other world—blindly I guzzle

      the swimming milk of its seed field flower—

       I could never let go

      my husband

      my wound

      my sleep

      but they were surrendered from me

      my books them

      pleasing you/

      disappointing you

      the desire for men

      gazing

      feeding

      the cursive characters

      I my you

      in chalk across

      the white-lined blackboard

      surrendered from me

      when I couldn't breathe so.

       The Basket House

      The basket house:

      to shelter me

      inside the night cave

       the emptiness

      where the other one holds me

      nurses me

      in the emptiness,

      holds me the way

      paper made out of a tree

      holds a deer.

      And he holds me near:

      he pulls the cord

      out from me, in to him,

      length over length.

       The House and the World

      All this anger

      heart beating

      unless I'd come inside

      your blind window

      and stay there like you

      But then

      the other world

      was going to be given:

      the cello part

      carrying us the whole time

      like earth the scarred hip

      tipped groin

      the flying whitethorn hedge

      the cup

       In your eyes

      In your eyes

      there was a little pupil

      a woman

      turned to

      a holy well

      notes and snapshots pinned to her dress

      at her feet

      crutches eyeglasses

       Woman, Leaving

      You waited 4 Ever

      Don't listen for words here

      no more than the words the grass speaks or

      the mouth of the lake

      Then came

      an undone stitch of light

      You tore it

      open and flew

       Trim my hoofs

      Trim my hoofs!

      I