WHO WE ARE (NOT)

I am the sister

with whom

he never shared a womb,

he is the lover

I never touched.

It is strange

how singularly

negation defines us

in a world of representation;

for though

it is a mean thing

to be overwhelmed

by longing,

it is more terrible to deny

the what of what isn't. 

ON A SANDBAR IN THE SUSQUEHANA, IN YOU

for John L. Jaskolski (1928-1994)

One faulty valve —

that's all it takes for the failure

of this core or that.

You had your own

Three Mile, your heart lapsing

into mere acquaintance,

a tourist at the temple.

And though I wonder first what

happened to the heart tissue

made by your mother,

cut and overhauled for a sleeker

model, I wonder too if

it ever sounded quite

the same when you listened

to the sea in a conch-shell,

or if your wife had to

adjust her two-step to follow you

in the years after surgery

reset your heart-beat.

Death besets quickening;

in the wake of failure —

your valve, that reactor —

all things sensual may have

indeed become so,

as never before sodden

spring air lingered, each breath

a start, as if a sighted lover.