a little patch of basil

[ a little patch of basil under the woodshed ]

The weather is something you notice. I
remember dying of starvation during one protracted                       cold
patch, and a gentle turning of the
mind, walking up to you in a dream asking to borrow
sugar, so that we
all might be
blessed
with sweeter gifts. Kiss my polished green eyes or I
cannot
stay; I will sing in Italian until                                                my needs
are met. Like coming to the end of a
cul-de-sac in a fever dream, as you stare at the nimbus thinning behind the
houses to revea-
l the thuggish sea. Only it's not the
intolerable
sea, it's a heart of
pure murder
blowing open in the                                         storm; a familiar
weight
pressed down on the
                 shoulders, in one ear and out the
aorta. In my opinion, standing on
head before bright light.
        Only it's not light,
it's a cool patch
            of lichen
                         as seen                                                           from space. What we need is a cast
shadow taken from the crook of
branch that comes from shared                                   perspective.
In a day or two this will not be over. The situation is
something that you can type up during the
evening in a livid sweat. Only it's not
                             sweat, it's bath salts
melting on your cheek, keeping quiet about the
way it is more or
less
always hard to imagine that much                              freedom.
It took me years to recognize your body
as a landscape, and then my
delight which had not
diminished. I
was bent
over
examining the river, refusing to acknowledge the
huge brown cloud hung over the
garden. I had whispered not
every holy drop of rain hates you. Only this one.
                                                         Only the very fact that you
are writing this poem,
and the illusion that someone else is its
author, sighing my name far apart from every                       deluded

view.
* * * * *