On the snack counter, the cross country train,

a lucite aquarium

houses guppies the size of thumbnail parings

darting among seeweed stalks

which wave when I lift the box

eye level, silver fins

fanning over a brown snail who walks his mouth

along a carpet of rainbow stones.

I wonder if fish can sense wet heat

moving eastbound

when Draco finds the height of its arc;

when a mourning cloak butterfly

drags crèpe in the mottled hem of her wings

across my morning shadow

although autumn is months ahead,

your funeral months behind--

 

while my friends deny me black:

weren't married

never lived under the same roof;

can't claim a widow's portion--

seering my skin. Not holy suttee--

Remember icqgz--fish as icon

believers hiding in caves no star

can enter--

death, then life--would forbid me that--

not widow! Not obliged!

not Jeanne d'Arc's virginal love's last act

enrafted to wood

to God by fire; just a brass censer

clouds of insense

balance the scales of memory.

Alpha. Omega.

Flame and ashes. Who is it

fills me roundabout?

Hooded crows scratch dry leaves

for berrys, acorns, pinecones, whatever

promises to root in a nameless dream-time.

My bloodless vision: at your desk,

your face mirrored in double espresso,

lemon twist,

you see the problem of carving your space

in the heartland

between cold and hot, north and south,

grey bluffs and cornfields

without loosing whatever Gaelic your mouth

can shape by twilight.

By your window where your telescope

spots alewifes fishing
 

beneath lake's tide like sky going nova.

Inside a calkskin medicine pouch

from my mother's Cherokee past

adorned with your silve Celtic knot--

I carry ancient magic--

stones from where the earth holds you.

Broad-winged hawks perch on fence posts

gnarling the tracks--grey beasts

of hawks specked black, grey wings

waiting in fog to rise in warm hunger.

Another rocks on his axis

like a piper cub, silent

above runway lights, surrounding night

comforting, strange,

the neon city welcoming while mist

curls down rows of corn--
 

blurring locusts and sweetgum;

burls turn yellow and brown;

shapeshifters dance as wind

wraps their dark mantles

over knotted roots.

Seed-time.

When stars loose their footing

over a field of milkweed pods,

a blaze of sumac staving off

the last footholds of fog.

Sunflowers, cattails

crumble among goldenrods

blending like potpourri

in your mother's crystal jar:

a keen of living aromas.
 

Is that why I trust this train

to thread its way along the Missouri

back to Chicago, where on my knees

in the fullest of spirit, I kiss
 

the sacred green of your grave?