Desire

Dark morning sleet whitecrusts the world

once more,  shrouds remains

of January thaw: butts, bits of Styrofoam cups,

the black-hoofed leg bone of a deer,

dragged home again and again

and again by our dog; the same bone I heave into

the hemlocks each time I go for wood.

 

Numbed beneath that cold sheet.  Then there it is:

Desire.

Knees, the fold of flesh beneath your ear.

 

Thin from winter, let's grow fat

again, keep eating it all

up.  Except the seeds.  Those I store.

In Case.

Hard to know-- not much talk on

After Desire.

 

Perhaps in some spring-need, there they'll be,

tucked in back of a backroom drawer:

a khaki shirt   a mattress   an eight-

sided house   out the window nothing but sky

the times I followed you,

the red lights of your car

down dark snowy roads

and I took off my clothes.