because I arrived in the dark

what I thought was rain was the river
moving over the mountain of sleep

I woke again and again in a room with three beds
and three poets, heads resting on the soft chests of words

not a sound, not even the sh of restless
sheets, only the breath of the river

threading through poems that might be
sewing this warm inside world to the cold

alpine spring, our almost stories blinking
holes in the high spaces of night

2011

for Laurie and Ellen, KCPF

Ravens

1
Look

2
He was already
Driving home from
Taos every few miles a bird
black and black over plunged
the highway ahead  Each time she asked
him its name  That is a raven

3
You always say
that she said (1)

4
A week later hands
under hands under
a table she listens neck bent In the grand canyon
I saw two checking out
the landscape riding a thermal
playing People assume human beings

5
are the only creatures capable of aesthetic
appreciation The male and female (2) I think
have the capability of caring for one
another mate for life

6
So many sugar pouches under the leg of our vague wanting to be ravens

7
In sleep he has never flown but fallen fallen fallen

8
from buildings into sand (3)
Now she on the other
hand remembers in her stomach how
to lift and dive without

9
fear Feathers mark pages in her
books prick her thighs through
thin pockets when she crouches
She stuffs them

10
ruffled into bottles shakes them out to check for black
______________________________________
1.  So start asking about the other birds
2.  fly touching wings
3.  It doesn’t hurt

slow hold

the gentle
plains of your body lay

unconstrained by seams
beneath slow palms. slow

as they could go.
eyes I knew, even

in shadow: your mother’s
blue kindness. (was she

also a sharer of spinach
and rice?)  silver

caravan, Cache La Poudre
could not contain the crash

of us, or our condensation,
clouds born of pulsing

breath and skin blushing
windows. finally, out in

the air, Hold raised her head.
Owl asked questions.  we smiled

inches from the beds of
our lips, faces reflecting

suns of bare teeth
hiding tongues.

2008-20012

Rachel on Poets’ Co-op TV

Catch a clip of Rachel's April 2012 performance on Poets' Co-op TV

No metaphors for

Say hello to the great shining
embroidered with your fleshy personality.
(The shining may be a clear hole, but if that scares you
think instead a rimless, bowlless, friendly bowl.)
I pull at our tight threads with poems.

Unraveling, I talk too much.
I’m paid to tell you what I know, but there are holes
in knowing funneling toward the shining hole,
and you fall through. I can’t catch you.

You can’t catch me.
We think our words are handholds,
or that our hands are words, but they are only bumps
stalling speed so fast it’s empty, so vast
even the sky falls through.

2012

Distances

Geological, mythological,
biological, neurological,
psychological, theological.

Perhaps there is no logic at all
in the urge bridging
or forcing the gap

between this earth, this story,
this skin, this charge,
this mind, this god and that.

2012

Where Words Wait

When I am nearly quiet
and perfect words appear,
silence is more perfect.

I tuck the precious phrase
behind my ear like windy hair,
or gum to save for later chewing.

I promise words a quick return.
My most important work requires
such wild undoing: an empty mouth.

2012

The Work of Dogs

Like my young pup
I can’t resist nosing dead starlings
in the back yard of my heart.
I snatch up every one
in my well-fed jaws and dart.
Yell for me all you want.
I’ll come back when I’m done.

2012

Clean Haiku

After deep cleaning
the same old house for ten years
it starts cleaning you.

2012

Hopeful Ruin

Looking for what is holy in my aversion,
I close my eyes to take in the burning
of my inner bureaucracy, plastic hallways

puddling in a maze. I leap through oxygen
of a most stubborn desire—the fuel
of my decade-long moment of hopeful ruin.

2012