lissome light of evening

{my back alley, last week before the last of the melting}

{light in the front yard elm, last week also}

* * *

(more fragmented poem-bits)

skin is warm, the scent of dust
i carry through the inland sea –

sprung from that red earth
& cradled in the hipbone of a prairie

awash in light; the saltmetal taste of blood,
lost rabbit’s foot, bright flush of the poppy;

black-starred ground, a thousand seeds
& a second sky inside of me.

* * *

(я нічого не чую, не чую нічого)

once i held you &
felt your ribs under my fingers
like little wooden xylophone rungs
i let my nails go soothing, echoes
tap-tapping to curl up in your hair –

& my sigh stifled, like
a floorboard squeaking i pray
you don’t feel the little tremors
beneath my feet, i can’t let you
feel the beating, taut
trembling shame of my telltale heart –

* * *

This is one of my favourite songs right now -- this new version of the song Cosmia (click there for mp3) by Joanna Newsom. It's on her brand-new EP, 'Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band...'
Her voice is so swooping & her lyrics gorgeously potent. When she sings

dried rose petal, red-brown circles
framed your eyes and stained your knuckles

it's so lovely I don't know what to do. She's mentioned in an interview that this song is about the death of a close friend, & that just makes the whole thing all the more aching. I'm especially in love with all the imagery of the moths, moths as messengers, their little dusty hearts, all that harp-plucking! Something that is alive in the evening, dwelling in spaces between:

beneath the porch light, we've all been circling
beat our dust hearts, singe our flour wings
but in the corner, something is happening!
wild Cosmia, what have you seen?

(the 'cosmia' she's singing about is probably cosmia trapezina)