When singing is a black sheep among sounds
in the wee hours, lightless I sing, I baaa
softly, reaching for the penlight,
feeling around for a scrap
to hold the rhythms of my dream
before the last mini-sleep,
before my gut is plucked
like a bass viol by the morning's
continuity.

	Without a snake
                I'd be obscurely hurt
	as I gaze down at our sill
                in the come once again summer.

	There he is, glittering, dry,
	an S on the too near to mow crabgrass.

	A memory of threat holds us
	equally, though in Maine
	zero at the bone is less mortal.
	I'm proud to have him there sunning
	after his slow
	ascension,
	his transport from a winter state of grace
	between fat boulders in our cellar.

	So be it!
                              Both of us awake
	with jutting heads
	at the startling starting line
	of the present.

		Others were more at home with your long gown.
		I understood the shoes that shined beneath it.
		Like angels we sat in tiers above you
		in the po-biz demonstration hall.

		You kneeled in what we all
		assumed was prayer, strode intently toward us
	                as if on a diving board, turned
		and strode back.
			        We felt accused,
		caught there with our stale expectations.

		A teacher-priest with curls like Pan's
		whispered "Well?" to his star
                                student, who answered "I'm not so sure."
                               "I'm not so sure, either."

		You began to intone.
		tying us to the blizzard outside,
		a biblical connection
		between tired birds and storms.
		You squinted as if a vacuum
                                coveted your face.

		Hefting your words we climbed the hills
		and ran down, with legs foreshortening, to a stop,

		then clapped.
		                    The whole room stood and clapped.

		You got down on your long
                                side below us like an auto mechanic
 		to readjust some more, if not to fix.

Blessed small talk, now I understand
"Whew!" and "It's a wet one!"
In the village store, in from weather.
All in the family, different families
Sound the surface of the skin
Worn so separately in common.
The local watershed refills
The wells of individual desire.