Word put in me, unknown faces, alienated form
         void of clear motive, void sleep, sans any head
         noise, no designation — sullen hushed ache
         dies holding out on its birth, as if to get sent
         back before preconceived seed, back into dark
         death spasms empty of white, twisted fits of pain
                  . . .
         fire echoed forward into expectation, into change
                  . . .
         cold eye, stolen morning, to continuously wake,
         work through the night, written by a dim light
                  . . .
         make edges sharp and open-ended, carry strange
                  . . .
         out unsung, broadly hung, high strung, far spun.
         Held in shadow until the right time, secret lives
         break into open view, finished from last to first.
         
         First cuts close themselves. Do me again. Break
         form, instantly taken against and at my word,
         lives let loose on their own yet tightly held
         head down past the point of no return to a void
         spun delicate as wishful thought to stretch out
         ache through self-consuming solitude. No noise
                  . . .
         change chaos to gravity, twist gravity to fire
         strange in breath, carve breathing to ice, make
                  . . .
         wake while still dreaming at morning dew's cold
         light touch, barely hard enough for it to work.

         Work. Work! Make something. Make it all light.
         Break it out. Smash it open. Me first, me first,
         cold as dark matter. Isolate it. Wake me, wake
                  . . .
         Make secrets emerge from this silence, strange
         fire out of thin air! Make everything change!

         Change bursts its insides out, making its fire
         light a time bomb set to detonate, do its work
         strange outside memory past expectation, make
         first into reflection off seizure's flash, break

                  * * *
       
         Dies cast decide my choice? Whose god has sent
                  . . .
         word for word? Chaos wires pure energy, form
                  . . .
         void. Straight void. Connected out my head.
       
         Head first to last, blood last to first, void
         sent to come, storm come as meant, meaning dies,
         pain confesses, justice begs audience of death
                  . . .
         lives again and again, released as if held
         first to last, bent back into the break
                  . . .
         dark. Incoherent whispers itch to turn back,
         ache to punch past pausing. God, let all noise
         form a line, make it up each from its own word.
     

        Why did my words
        make it back alive?
        And not you? not you?
        nor you? nor you and you?
        
        Words are my new clothes.
        Back there I didn't use them
        but danced naked shamelessly
        and sang like in the beginning
        before everything had a name
        and got all dressed up in words.
        
        Only from your words
        do I now remember you.
        My words are a storm.
        Only from those that aren't yours
        can I tell who you're not.
        Our words cross.
        I can tell you apart from each other
        by which words you choose.
        
        Why do I remember you
        by a verb, not a touch?
        Why can I remember you
        by a noun, not your eyes?
        Why will I remember you
        by a word you've pronounced,
        not by an unfamiliar voice?
        
        David reads me every word.
        His voice cracked the dense dark
        to clothe my world with your word.
        He named each of you by your word.
        He gave you life by your poetry.
        He made you dance in my dreaming
        by the nuance of your song.
        
        I don't know you.
        I have only memorized you
        from what he has read me.
        
                Why word?
                Why not what I had
                back there before I heard
                or spoke it out aloud?
     

        There are two of you, aren't there?
        The two of you, to an only one left of me.
        That works. Don't we fit comfortably?
        
        I used David's pen. He had to be at work.
        I wrote you on the palm of my left hand.
        Allan took my right. He'll understand.
        
        I pressed my hands tight together palm to palm.
        You to him so close made cold skin sweat.
        Does that mean nothing? I forget.
        
        I rubbed the two together. I made you two pray.
        I mixed both hands' letters up inside my head.
        Love, words they made up said.
        
        You they tell me I'm supposed to have known well.
        Allan, not so, though already more than a name.
        Why do I see the two of you the same?
        
        I held my hands close everywhere on me I could reach.
        My feet, my hips, parts of my back, both breasts too.
        Nowhere was memory of you.
        
        I held my hands close everywhere on me I could touch.
        My thighs, my shoulders, all up in my hair.
        New you, I felt so everywhere.
        
        I held my hands close.  Everywhere on me I could scratch,
        I found a scar already there. Do any match yours?
        When all else dies, love endures.
        
        Your name.  His. I wrote the two of you on my hands.
        They're both blurred now. I held you to my eyes
        in tears a lifelong friend cries.
     

   For my new friend Allan, the first one I feel I know
   although everyone else is someone they tell me I should —
      here I am, here is all I am, here for you is Sara. Hello.
   You understand what I struggle through, and you know
      what I want to go back to and why.  I don't.
   I don't know what it means when they say I was gone
      for nearly a year, except for wanting to go again.
   I don't know what it means when they tell me I've done so well
   and made good progress the past six months.  What six months?
   I don't recognize my own family.  I don't know my new sister.
   I don't know why they want so much from me. Who am I to them?
   I don't even know David, although I can tell that saddens him.
   I don't know what happened.  I don't know what I did to myself.
   I want to do it again, that I know.  Why does that scare them?
   I hear voices.  I feel words.  I taste images that boil in me.
      Storms twist in knots inside. I only know I want them to.
            I don't understand any of it. I have tried. I can't.
   You do.  You reach out and tell me you do, and I can feel it,
      that you do understand. Why can't I? Why can't I?

   They tell me I am a miracle. They tell me I could have died.
   And if I'd chosen to, would they have stolen that from me too?
   You have been there, and you chose the hard way, to come back.
   You understand, so you know I may not make the same choice.
   If I'm such a miracle, will that take my choices away from me?
   You've been there too, so you know I would be waiting for you.

   David reads for me.  He sings. He talks to me when I sleep.
   I know his voice like my mother's from before I was born.
   I know he loves me. I can tell I love him. I don't know why.
   I know it hurts him. He wants me back. Back to what? What?
   I don't remember what I am supposed to come back to for him.
   I only know him from the voice that broke through my void.
   His voice created this world I live in now, like word of a god.
   Has he given his life for me? What did I do to deserve that?
      Yes, I need to talk.  I hear voices.  I feel words.  
   I don't know what any of it means.  I didn't choose this.
      That is all I know.  I didn't choose this.  I didn't.

   David writes for me. It is hard for me to concentrate.
   He reads me your words. I tell him what I want to say.
   He helps me when I want to try to make sense of it.
   He can't make sense of it, but he helps me try to.
      I hear voices.  I have no strength. I feel words. 
   David cares, but he does not know to make sense of it.
   The nurses care, but they can't make sense of it.
   My doctors care, but they can't make sense of it.
      All the friends I don't remember, they all care.
   What good is it, to care, without knowing what it means? 

         I left my soul back there, back where I was.
   It remains strong, while I stand out here naked, weak.
   Let me slip out the door quietly and close it behind me.

   Allan, my new friend whom I love for who you are,
   for being someone I don't have to be sorry I don't know,
   whom I love for knowing who I am even when I don't: hello.
   Hello. Tell me why that hello sounds so good to say.
               Does it mean I am making a choice to stay?
     

     Not enough dark to fill the night I left behind,
          not enough cold to take up the void I dropped,
               not enough pain to make it feel real again,
                    not enough heat to burn off the shame
                         of not having the strength to fight
                              to stay to know to die to see
                                   to touch that singular
                                        turning away I
                                             should have
                                                  done to
                                                       be.
     

     See but those thick clouds go scattering.
     This storm wants to pass me on by.
          Rain sure does me good
          nowhere near as it should
     when it can't even help me cry.
     
     I wanted the flood to come take me down.
     I wanted to drown, I won't lie.
          Of most consequence
          is what makes the least sense
     when no heartbreak can help me cry.
     
     I keep looking every which way half expecting
     I'll miss it. What's wrong with this sky?
          Have I lost all control
          to burnt visions I stole
     thinking vision might help me cry?
     
     My sky oughtn't be so quiet and empty,
     at least not like my doctors imply
          to be needed to heal,
          when the cure most ideal
     is that void that would help me cry.
     
     So I'm damned if I sacrifice nothing we'd save
     but then saved if I let myself die?
          It sucks I'll not get
          my face one bit wet
     by a drama that can't help me cry.
     
     Come back! Black horizon, come back to me
     in the fold of a sunset bled dry
          of all meaning, all gain,
          all compassion, all pain,
          all intention, all that's sane,
          all that raises its eye to the rain
     on my own alone to myself to help me cry.
     
     David's here with me, been so all along,
     so I'm told. He won't tell me why.
          But how can I give
          him what death had to live
     through to get love to help me cry?
     

     Oblivion, don't melt away!
   
     Midnight sun, my horizon!
   
A stranger wearing a bright smile and warm body
creeps in to fill spaces thought cold and empty
in my bed. He brings me flowers. He sings me what
he thinks I should want to hear. His hands are warm
like he's been out back planting in simmering soil
and he chirps at me of new life and how loved I am
and tries to get me to forget winter's stormy howls.
   
He promises me. He says he's the one to believe in.
   
He acts like he brought spring in my front door,
laid it out on my bed for me to laugh and dance to
just as soon as he's done making love to me his way,
his idea, his time, his satisfaction, his springtime.
   
Was I always this easy before? I don't remember.
   
I still find it hard to focus. I am still catching up.
   
I still can touch the sharp edge of ice in my dreams.
I can breath frost into the words frozen in place
and thrill at sudden shivers that reach deep enough in.
   
Spring doesn't have his own day. His touch is not new.
   
He only slips into the bed where winter still belongs.
He only hears the poetry I'd done to recite to our dark.
His pleasure with me only comes by not knowing my smile
smiles for remembering when I'd last shared the cold
with you. 
   
            Lost in your blizzard of white oblivion.
Exchanging passes with the playful midnight sun.
In no need of spring. Wanting only another lost hour
turned back to winter's sleep with the sting of your 
fingernails in my back like an icicle's biting kiss.
   

                        Neighborhood's stirring. Meaning soon we wake.
                     Take
                  it easy. When it comes time to, I'll help pack.
                        Back
            in bed, you. Come let's turn our dream back on.
                           Dawn
      will turn it off behind us after you're gone
         leaving me a day dropping in as unanticipated
            as being forgotten. God, of all you've created,
                                 take back dawn!

                        Half of me tries to scream, the other half
                     laugh
                  at myself. What would I care about
                           out
            there, the noise of a mindless crowd
                                 loud
      enough to silence mine in a colorless cloud?
         So I should get out? relax? break a smile?
            I can do even better than that! Watch, I'll
                                          laugh out loud.

       He thought nothing of it
       and on that they agreed
       since she couldn't let on 
       they didn't, there being 
       no poet left in either of them 
       to deny the lie they let speak 
       for their attempt on love.

       Except she never once had him
       past the base of that one part,
       that one piece of him without
       its accessories, like one book
       overdue after she'd borrowed it
       from a vast library she had no
       occasion or interest to browse
       but went ahead and filled in
       as best she knew how would fit.

       And he was never that into her
       any farther than that one part
       of him was said by her would fit,
       that and no farther was allowed
       like one more place he'd've gone
       had he reached the border by dark
       but got turned back until a later
       time that was not in him for a
       place that was not any of hers.

       But there had been that part
       of him that'd reached that far
       through her, so they let it try
       to call them enough to be
       loved, some collision not entirely
       as accidental as it appears it was.
       And if she was never to have had
       more than that one part of him
       and if he was not to come through
       any more into her, at least they did
       for that single random instant meet,
       dance, exchange. Act like loving.

       So he stood at his edge of that
       infinitely high wall he'd made
       and hurled his seed wildly out
       into a black storm she was said
       to've been in, while she angled
       down another strange street said
       to've been one of his aimlessly
       turning a corner toward a light
       dimming to the morning weather
       and tried not to think too hard
       about what the rain tasted like.

       Then he figured it was enough to
       go on to make the jump, as she
       let on it was maybe enough for her
       to stick around another night for,
       and they lay close enough for sleep
       to come against the dark, the void.

       And he never did hit the ground.
       And she never did take a breath.

       But they both needed their excuses,
       his for stopping and hers to move on.
       And since there had been so little
       between them, hardly enough to waste
       good word on, I have been asked
       to say for them, how they meant nothing
       by it, neither bad nor good, only as
       much and as far as things can reach
       and still leave untouched, unloved.