David Swerdlow

Bodies on Earth

I.

In the thin body of a house,
I have been awake for hours.

*
Love, she said, it's time--

                     April's own flair, frost
still a possibility, no one yet
putting in seed--

we go. It was her voice.

*

Slowly the face of the earth
remembers its shadows

*

and slowly
we get up from our chairs.


II.

Blue plates on a brown table,
                        the sound
                        
they made as they were placed, so much
of us--

*

I hit my daughter, the softness
of her cheek still in my hand
                       when I drive to work,
                       
when I eat this bread,
when I kiss her,

             when I come home.
             
*

I saw her sleek hair crown, listened
to her mother as she was pushed into this

*

restlessness.


III.

Summer despair, odor of debris
                          yellowed
by stalled heat,

*

and the last stone of August skids
like a convict across the pond.

*

We catch ourselves,

*

reflections in the window, one body

*

over another.
Crucifix in shadow on the white wall

over the white bed,
                a thinness
                
*

the body must live within.

*

Our faces are almost

visible in the window as we turn
from right to left, left to right,

*

eyes compressed, eyes elongated,

*

the sun broader now,
                  compelled
                  
*

over the long slant of grass.


IV.

Light comes upon us, lovers
fallen asleep on this outcrop
of stones among pines,

*

September fog on our eased thighs.

*

Russet
on the bird's underside

               as it flies in the rain as the rain
               skids sideways across the sky.
               
*

Last blossoms ache, last sadnesses

*

dwell
     on the night grass--
     
*

Absence tilts this way
from above the honey locust.

*

Breath leaves words on the grass,

*

failure's weight
and warmth.


V.

Love takes on our smells--
                        legs, arms, redolent,
                        
*

glistening
dark hair.

*

My daughter's face is the sky
I lose myself admiring

*

and my wife lies sadly across our bed.

*

Moths strike at one lit window.

We are tired
of their futile wings.


VI.

Sad grasses whisper out of the snow.

---

David Swerdlow's first collection of poems, Small Holes in the Universe, was published in 2003 by WordTech Editions. He teaches English and creative writing at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. contents | previous | next