January 8, 2005: Birthday Poem

I rust in old streets where tar leaks
over the sky, making what is empty, full.
I do not die in this transformation.
I rest in America and watch history
as dramatic pause, keeping pace with
the guts of the streets. Step there. I am
old again. I am young in her eyes. She is
the delicate surprise that I log in my diary.

I count her. No, I court her. No, I fly
to the wind underneath her feathers. They
swish and lift my arms above her beak.

I said she was a bird. I speak of her as sweet
mouths wet with the lubrication of comets
dressed to seed sultry Himalayan plates.

I do not exaggerate. How can I? There are no
lies left in the encyclopedia of stars. I drain them
with the answers I glean from wheat, corn and
the patter of her rocks above sacred Negev.

I am not persuaded that life continues after death.