1.

haley wooning

 

the heart’s patulous blue
eats its own bone,                   dreaded
with the silvered and rivered threads
of an ancient, far-off moon

one can get used to anything,
flightless birds,
boneyards or the gore-filled
horns of autumn


oracle, marble Cassandra,
which each dawn crudely
effaces            and only

the women remain
to remember what was once
wailed or wept or said

blood, blood red
here falls the water of a death


and all of this
contained in the world of a palm
that dares to stroke

the earth’s mountainous shoulder

I arrive, I arrive
only to forget again

the drowned lands, my dreams,
my love and unimportant sorrow

blue, my body, an impermanent

handful of stones

as the fingers rot and wither
and wretched geese flit
and flock home

 

 

***

Haley Wooning lives in California with her partner and cat, Puck.