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Under the Umbrella

 

 

 

I stand in my birthday suit doing the nature dance

under the light and the dark of the moon

I turn in my skin, the skin I came in–

revolving with the planets, with the seasons

with the broken umbrella outside my door

I turn in my skin, the skin I came in

and in the skin of my skin, slowly turning

 

Skin

that melting metamorphosis

that shelters interconnecting veins

pulsing

like railings in New York subways;

that protects blood-rivers and other living landscapes–

mirrors I will reflect but never see

Skin

who through thick and thin

records and traces with her zillion fingertips

the history of my life in Braille

who sloughs herself off as the caterpillar

or unveiling onion

then moves on without me

like the moon

like all things luminous

that leave always a sliver of themselves behind

 

Oh, skin!

Sometimes, I think there are so many of you!

Like a cat

I want to lick you clean

like a lover

to stroke your parchment

to inhale you slowly as I might a fuzzy peach

like a shaman

to heal myself the way you heal

To take my fear that crawls under you–

to take all the shadows we have together shed

and turn them into one translucent understanding

 

Fourteen times

they have cut you open

and sewn you back up again

Fourteen times

you have worn that crimson corsage at your delicate throat—

swallowed it all with quiet dignity

while I was off in that other country

leaking breath like ink in a God-damn sieve--

dragging my words like your flesh behind me

 

And, still the soul’s marrow

like my own bones’ thinning

moves through and beyond

the fading bruise of my existence

 

Often, I wonder

what is the mystery of your moving landscape

Wonder

where you and your gypsy violins wander off to…

If you know who and where you are when you get there

And, after

you have been multiplied, divided, subdivided

split like an atom and reduced to the smallest nth

will you still re-member me?

 

I like to think

I am a singing miracle inside my Mother’s skin

That you, my skin,

(oh, city of spandex! oh, city of balloons!)

belong to a family of skin

whose invisible memory-quilt stretches all imagination

That your feet dance with mine

in Moscow and Vienna

That your poems dance with mine

in and through the streets of Paris

That your eyes turn like seeds that open into flowers

That they will continue to turn and to open

beyond this blistering disintegration.

 

I like to think

that at this very moment

you are kneeling silently

with your brothers and sisters--

shimmering in your horrific beauty,

in the heavy mist, in the rising ash,

beyond the cruel and callused glare cast

by the lacquered shades of human lamps.

That you are too vast, too many

for any one museum

with no one to fill your stacks of empty shoes

That you are as raindrops and teardrops

whose only desire is to find an opening in closure

That your particles dance and hum in the dark

with the unblemished day of the newborn

with the newly delivered moon

wrapped in the coils of all ages

That you are as dust and stardust…

Everyone and Everywhere

 

 

Oh, skin!

What else can I tell myself

when your so strong, so tender ribbon

is all but coming undone?

Right now you are the perfect gift

wrapped inside yourself

while I,

(forever in eclipse) (always the skeleton)

stand stripped and exposed as any holocaust–

an old abandoned house in weeds

whose intimate scenery hangs tattered and flapping–

my broken umbrella weeping softly

outside my door

 

Oh, skin! Oh, skin!

how do you hold it all in?