Seaweed
Henri Cole


I love the green and brown seaweed
floating freely on the surface of the water,
like a Jackson Pollock, or an enormous bed
in which the world is no longer a place
of rigid structures. I feel drawn to it but also
to the sea with all its gigantic beauty pushing
against us and below. I want to look at you
but I do not. The edge of the beach brims
with light that glides down around our legs
and then down into the folded depths,
from which the waves erupt, toppling us suddenly
into their undulating plash, connecting—
over a vast terrain of ditches—the salt of sweat,
the salt of tears, and the salt of the sea.

Solitude: The Tower
Henri Cole


Long ago, I lived at the foot of the mountains
where my parents lived when they were young.
Nearby, there was a daffodil farm, which I bicycled past
each day on my way to the supermarket.
Occasionally, there were earthquakes, but no one noticed.
At my desk, words and phrases grew only slowly,
like the embedded or basal portion of a hair,
tooth, nail, or nerve. As I looked at the empty page—
seeing into love, seeing into suffering,
seeing into madness—my head ached so,
dear reader, emotions toppling me in one
direction, then another, but writing this now,
sometimes in a rush, sometimes after drifting thought,
I feel happiness, I feel I am not alone.

Sunflower
Henri Cole


When Mother and I first had the do-not-
resuscitate conversation, she lifted her head,
like a drooped sunflower, and said,
"Those dying always want to stay."
Months later, on the kitchen table,
Mars red gladiolus salg Ode to Joy,
and we listened. House flies swooped and veered
around us, like the Holy Spirit. "Nature
is always expressing something human,"
Mother commented, her mouth twisting,
as I plucked whiskers from around it.
"Yes, no, please." Tenderness was not yet dust.
Mother sat up, rubbed her eyes drowsily, her breaths
like breakers, the living man the beach.

Bats
Henri Cole


Each night they come back, chasing one another
among the fronds after gorging on papayas,
to drink from the swimming pool. With my sleep-
stiffened bones, I like to watch them, careening 
into the bright pool lights, spattering the walls with pulp
and guano, like graffiti artists. Sometimes, when they meet,
they hit one another's furred wings—Love thy neighbor
like thyself—and then soar off again to drink
more bleached water. Sometimes, it seems as if
they are watching me, like a Styrofoam head
with a wig on it. "The patient reports that he has 
been lonely all his life," one screams to the other.
I can hardly stand it and put my face in my hands,
as they dive to-and-fro through all their happiness.

Away
Henri Cole


If I close my eyes, I see you again in front of me,
like light attracting light to itself. I'm standing
in the lake, forming a whirlpool with my arms,
letting the force of atonement pull me into its center
until I cannot any longer hang onto my observations
or any sense of myself, like dust and hydrogen clouds
getting all excited while creating new stars to light
the backyard. How poignantly emptiness cries out
to be filled. 
                   But writing this now, my hand is warm.
The character I call Myself isn't lustful, heavy,
melancholic. It's as if emotions are no longer bodied.
Eros isn't ripping through darkness. It's as if I'm
a boy again, observing the births of two baby lambs.
The world has just come into existence.

Carwash
Henri Cole


I love the iridescent tricolor slime
that squirts all over my Honda in random
yet purposeful patterns as I sit in the semi-
dark of the "touch-free" carwash with you.
Listening to the undercarriage blast, I think,
"Love changes and will not be commanded."
I smile at the long, flesh-colored tentacles waving
at us like passengers waving good-bye.
Water isn't shaped like a river or ocean;
it mists invisibly against metal and glass.
In the corridor of green unnatural lights
recalling the lunatic asylum, how can I
defend myself against what I want?
Lay your head in my lap. Touch me.