I became a criminal when I fell in love.
Before that I was a waitress.

I didn't want to go to Chicago with you.
I wanted to marry you, I wanted
Your wife to suffer.

I wanted her life to be like a play
In which all the parts are sad parts.

Does a good person
Think this way? I deserve

Credit for my courage--

I sat in the dark on your front porch.
Everything was clear to me:
If your wife wouldn't let you go
That proved she didn't love you.
If she loved you
Wouldn't she want you to be happy?

I think now
If I felt less I would be
A better person. I was
A good waitress.
I could carry eight drinks.

I used to tell you my dreams.
Last night I saw a woman sitting in a dark bus--
In the dream, she's weeping, the bus she's on
Is moving away. With one hand
She's waving; the other strokes
An egg carton full of babies.

The dream doesn't rescue the maiden.

A child draws the outline of a body.
She draws what she can, but it is white all through,
she cannot fill in what she knows is there.
Within the unsupported line, she knows
that life is missing; she has cut
one background from another. Like a child,
she turns to her mother.

And you draw the heart
against the emptiness she has created.

In the story of Patroclus
no one survives, not even Achilles
who was nearly a god.
Patroclus resembled him; they wore
the same armor.

Always in these friendships
one serves the other, one is less than the other:
the hierarchy
is always apparant, though the legends
cannot be trusted--
their source is the survivor,
the one who has been abandoned.

What were the Greek ships on fire
compared to this loss?

In his tent, Achilles
grieved with his whole being
and the gods saw
he was a man already dead, a victim
of the part that loved,
the part that was mortal.

The elements have merged into solicitude,
Spasms of violets rise above the mud
And ****, and soon the birds and ancients
Will be starting to arrive, bereaving points
South. But never mind. It is not painful to discuss
His death. I have been primed for this --
For separation -- for so long. But still his face assaults
Me; I can hear that car careen again, the crowd coagulate on
  asphalt
In my sleep. And watching him, I feel my legs like snow
That let him finally let him go
As he lies draining there. And see
How even he did not get to keep that lovely body.

When I made you, I loved you.
Now I pity you.

I gave you all you needed:
bed of earth, blanket of blue air--

As I get further away from you
I see you more clearly.
Your souls should have been immense by now,
not what they are,
small talking things--

I gave you every gift,
blue of the spring morning,
time you didn't know how to use--
you wanted more, the one gift
reserved for another creation.

Whatever you hoped,
you will not find yourselves in the garden,
among the growing plants.
Your lives are not circular like theirs:

your lives are the bird's flight
which begins and ends in stillness--
which begins and ends, in form echoing
this arc from the white birch
to the apple tree.

The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.

The Wild Iris

by Louise Gluck

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little.  And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water.

When I saw your first glance,
My feelings for you enhanced,
You're twinkling innocent eyes,
In them all your charm lies,
You have got the perfect smile,
You are the one who is always in the best style,
You've shot my heart,
You were a thief right from the start,
Now the damage is done,
I have nowhere to run,
You are my saving grace,
I want to be surrounded by your embrace,
Along the woods i want to walk with you forever,
I want it to be a walk to remember.

Clammy creepy freaky fright
virulent vermin scary sight
tell me what is that.

Crawling craving webbing prey
frightens her when eats her whey
saved when pounces cat.

Ominous is its wicked lull
saintly sitting on the wall
mischief within skull.

Meditate in a stupored trance
quickly clinches preying chance
victory's joyous dance.

Brutish brownish bitter brat
worse than hornet bees and gnat
tell me what is that.

**** if you can in one slap
break its sticky ******* trap
hear hands' roaring clap.

She teases me would you dare
climb few steps and go upstairs
sleep the night alone.

She knows well my fear of ghost
knows too well I fear them most
a fear I don't disown.

Phantoms I do conjure
a malady without any cure
a fear I've not outgrown.

Dragging footsteps shadows around
hearing sounds where there's no sound
whispers eerie moans.

Creaking doors yawning darkness
present they all fear's ugly face
shivers chill in bone.

In my mind lies on topmost
swirling mist of bothering ghost
a fear I can't dethrone.

So I don't love lone upstairs
gobbling ghosts and chilly scares
all the threats in store.

Tell her *dear tease no more
give my word not to snore
make my bed on floor.