A Tear

A single tear
A simple one
A tear of blood
A precise note
A subtle witness of the fire
leading you to dust
A limpid stone
A tear well steeped in your marrow
gone out of you
that stands at the outer limit of your being
like a sacred song
and which
for everyone else
is nothing.

Take me Dancing

Take me dancing, the earth is frozen
yet it is spring I have in my mind.
I feel a strange joy, a loud clock
ready to burst out of my chest.
It’s been so many years a slower
sap courses through my lungs,
thicker than ice. I think of the lake,
of the city, of the silent days
inclosed in one opaline season,
they break from me, correct
one another  — all may live.
Take me dancing, I’ve waited
long enough, for the bed here
to get warm, for the dress to unfurl,
for the coins in the can to fade out,
and for a love that helps to live and die.
Sing me a song about flying, about
being high, I want to forget all the rest.
The snow in the air is white and whirling,
take me dancing untill my thighs burn
and the lake is on fire. It is the strangest
winter, the strangest cold —
even the stars pulsing upon the ice
seem to be made of flesh and blood.