In My Love's Olive-Skin House

We find the studs that rafter the joists
and tongue in groove the ceiling tiles
so we can walk upside down,
where the floor will never tremble, lips
aglow with smiles, and if love counts
it nails me to you when I enter in
either door . . . Mouth my skin,
let me in after I’ve been out all night
and morning too, I have habits
from my youth, seeing too many fathers
in the wan town where I grew,
later in the tavern away from the house
whose foundation was block not brick,
yet even so, the feds demanded Mother
remove Late Father’s creation,
elevator he designed, built, installed,
and hire a man to put in stairs
before they gave her a reverse mortgage
after she fell in the backyard
and could not get to her feet
until the neighbor driving by thought
to say hello to the Irish widow
she was. Albeit Protestant. Not like you,
my darling catolica. And now I’m one too
so my ashes may either be interred
with yours or taken to Lobo Mountain,
to the Georgia O’Keeffe tree
above the house given to Lawrence
and Frieda by Mabel Dodge Lujan,
just above the Phoenix Frieda’s
next husband sculpted for the shrine
to hold the body she had delivered
from where it always is that poets die.
There are the photographs.
Here’s one of the house,
one of the shrine,
one of the tree.
One of you
and one
of me.
See?
O love, hold me fast! Let my body in circles go
in yours. Until Fate’s hammer comes down.

(17 October 2010)