What angels invented

_i.
The ocean of air above
you swells with voices
deathless skippers leaving
dust of meteorites
in gusty mind-
crevices


but you, an airborne antigen
You trammel inspiration
off the tallest waters. The poems
you could have written
   

       I go on and they go too,
       skating away on pitchey ink


_ii.
The ocean of water beneath
my trembling fingers your hand
closes over them so clasping
so out of breath and quiet


skin which I am carrying
on top of my skin paints
the blush of every flower
in your state opening up
to spring at once


       you can put your twangy spin on stars
       (but you can't keep me off alone)


_iii.
The firmament of earth between
us — automatic: I write us
like the cosmos happens
dually — miniscule,


cursive:
the firmament last
time you held that stare I could
have built castles on
(the way you looked
at me, astronomically)


       and now you are becoming beast,
       fire, water and stone


_iv.
"Zodiac of lights" you point
the first charred finger
at some endless circulations


the pulses continuing
under the anxious months
of silence: because
I wouldn't know
if you got struck
by a bus full
of wilted flowers


your letters, like autobiographies of hawks


       handwriting limping on, crooked,
       lingering in all the sunken places


_v.
In the tent of dropping clouds
the scaly cathedral Morning
is murmuring her way through
saturated leaves of grass


maybe I could sink into the earth
like that, if only my shoulders
would soften up; maybe I would sink
into the earth and be delivered


to you with the daybreak settling in
to the dust-like depressions on my forehead


       and maybe you can face them out
       maybe, a delusion


_vi.
The striped coat of climates:
a slain mammoth decomposing
You the rabid bandit
stealing tender meat away in
backward handfuls bringing me


corners of sunshine scraped from polar joints
the healing rain nudged beneath its chestbone
neural snow melted on Antarctic eyelashes


       my wrists stained purple-red with ooze
       of pomegranates. Take them with you


_vii.
The fourfold year
has built inside it
a mechanism for pain
that works like your
immune system,


but with more room for planetary metaphor
and cartographic palm lines. You are
like a little bit of love mixed in
with the blackest oil. Let it in, love,


       write the poem. Let's offer up what's left
       to Spring and she will kiss us with the grace of winds.