Diane di Prima

I saw you in green velvet, wide full sleeves
seated in front of a fireplace, our house
made somehow more gracious, and you said
“There are stars in your hair”— it was truth I
brought down with me

to this sullen and dingy place that we must make golden
make precious and mythical somehow, it is our nature,
and it is truth, that we came here, I told you,

for Jackson Allen My friend wears my scarf at his waist
I give him moonstones

for Alan This, then, is the gift the world has given me
(you have given me)

Extract the juice which is itself a Light.

Pulp, manna, gentle
Theriasin, ergot
like mold on flame, these red leaves
bursting
from mesquite by the side
of dry creekbed. Extract


the tar, the sticky

Sweetheart
when you break thru
you’ll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.

I won’t promise
you’ll never go hungry
or that you won’t be sad

you are my bread
and the hairline
noise
of my bones
you are almost
the sea

you are not stone
or molten sound