TWELVE PORTRAITS OF SUE

HEATH JOSEPH WOOTEN

              I. : LINEN

Should I be                      to be absorption

                in a sky without rain                     weave

someone else

                              into this blush time

                 painted upon the grass             I am tired

the sky wrinkles

like a forehead                     and it’s mine

             if I think about it

                                                   if I think

              II: HAZELWOOD

In a shade        I pretended                       to be beautiful

               in a shade I wanted                      to wear a necklace and be quiet

there’s a song between the branches                but I forgot

to listen today                I pretended to be beautiful when I struck

                the antler from the deer            I wanted

                                                                                                but I couldn’t

              III: CORN

An eternity of field etches

hoof-memories               mandible twisted

                                               in an accident of roots

He holds my hand long enough

to feel my fingers           braid invisible

                                               lengths of corn silk

IV: MAHOGANY

I am not here in the forest        no hardwood

tracks the feet of my leaving

              they can’t                           they are trees

I am not here but           and       regardless

               remove me and let

                    woodgrain remember              the song of me

              V: ROSEWOOD

Not flower on this prairie not bloom

but sting

                                             where every sunset stings

like an ant          carries                a cloud of dirt

on its back                       hunger abdomen

not thorax and never                   flower

but wood whittled        into bead

and bead            splinters in a callus

              VI: HEATHER

Where a body can wait fallow                  where the fertile

speaks of sprouting grass                         where every word

                   bends back to birth                   where I am only still

                                and                                      where the song

                                of the water

in my mouth

                                is loudest

                                and no stops for the sake of starting

              VII: CERULEAN

Drought means                              dry proliferation

of tongues                                                                      all stop

                                I stop and listen for the governance

               of thunder                           think of how his voice too

was once like rain-promise                          but I was never afraid

                                 like I am now

              VIII: CLAY

As a child I scratched              a universe

               into existence                              tiny god

of rabbit rib                     of any face I could remember

                as dirt                                               any smile

                                              any tooth

IX: MOSS

The wife to any measure of moisture

the mother of wet places beneath stones     it’s a land I don’t recognize

               racoons melt like oil into a stink of log

snakes like oil                  oily mushrooms          a twilight

               defined only by its thickness               relative to what I remember

of a dry

                                              when he knew this land          and which berries

               poisoned the woodpeckers      I knew

                               there would be no welcome

              X: CEDAR

Never so bold                 never a life

                               I couldn’t measure          by my body

                his bent back    in a familiar  of stunted and decay

he spoke of time with a philosophy

                of always             but as I am

I was never                         and I never will

              XI: FOG

Smell death and leave

              XII: SABLE

When there was             goodnight        I thought muskrat

I thought beaver tail                    I thought building a dam

                                with perfect pears       I thought of eating fruit from the palm

of his hand                                         how beautiful his hair gone silver

in a moonlight              impossible                        I thought the stick

               of my lips and the rhythm of a cricket               I thought to exist

I must think      I thought goodnight

               and then a spring of sweat upon         my morning brow.

Listen to "Sleep" by Juliana Hatfield, selected to accompany "TWELVE PORTRAITS OF SUE," below: