Brushes With The Dark Law

 Published Nov 26, 2024, in Festival for Poetry

Norwegian Wood

Are these not just excuses to not connect. Our differences are irrelevant. To only name the flaws. - Bjork

Perhaps it was wrong
to burn him in my bucket of ashes.
Perhaps raising fire
was only code for my incompetence.
He is a fine musician, he hears notes
better than words.  I hear
the keys and chords of an unknown man
and my hunger looks for answers 
in blue notes and echoes. 
Words dry up. They always have.
But words are kindling too.
*
Sandalwood oil cools on the tabernacle of your wrist.
No sandalwood grew in Oslo.
Yet our little love nest on the fjord was full of sweet scent
and strong hot tea.  I loved choosing furniture
for you. I loved dropping mint and sugar in your tea.
I loved singing a third above your melody.
You did not notice. You kept singing your lonely song.
*
How many tables did we construct? 
How much experience can be stretched on them 
now for examination?  And how many conclusions 
wow us then are moved like chess pieces?
The usual gambit
grabs your body from my memory
and I anele it with aloe and myrrh 
as scripture demands. Ashes to ashes, you know.
So I clinch the white ash and a checkmate
from plane crashes, canals,
and ransomed songs foreshortened by history.
But the wooden hut we cobbled together
outlasts us. It outlasts even inept love.