Poem 1: The Winter Emptying
In November you become bitter wind.
Your old hip comes unsaddled
from the rubber of muscle
to sit with cow bones, useful, in snow.
You let your bundled cage
be wound wide open to the canines of the sky,
clamped hard on the heart's wet throb
and sob, bleed humiliations
in rivulets from the eye.
In december settled like a lake
you're empty, all ways open, and lie
down. Mooring slipped, you paddle to the lover
who waited in the town.