the telescope & the farmer's wife.

he's the kind of man who loves
too many bodies to be a good 
american boy-- paints on the layers
of his hands with a roller on
the porch each morning-- picks
dirt from under his nails at
the dinner table
when his wife folds her hands
in front of her as if to turn
her hands into the halves of
a peach-- her wedding ring 
is the pit in between them--
he doesn't eat from one table--
takes the soup ladle to the
stars from a telescope out
the open barn door--
picks up the rotting carcasses
of overripe moons
& passing comets so that
he can press them & plant them
in the year to come--
if he waits long enough he'll
find one with the stem still
attached-- pluck it apart
& peel the star like a tangerine--
rind thick & callous like
his own hands-- black
blood
of the night coursing at the core--
& be bites because he
thinks of bodies as something
belonging to the sky-- he
would only wish to write him
& his wife as constellations--
he would make the big dipper
her wooden spoon.
she watched him from the house
as he picks seeds for the coming
year-- she doesn't like
how at night the sky
becomes full of the eyes of all
the stars-- she can't tell
if they're all a different version
of god who has decided to watch
that night-- she puts back on
her wedding ring to do
the dishes-- feels herself turning
into saturn-- orbiting the acres--
waking up encircling 
the apple trees-- plucks small
seeds like more meteors to
scatter out into
the cosmos of the soil-- she
plants her world in potted
herbs by the back window
where there has always been enough
thyme-- he won't come inside till
she's asleep but he meets
her under the Jonagolds & the Winesap--
tells her he's sorry that
he can't stop planting
stars instead of soybeans
but she says she does it too--
he throws his wedding ring around
neptune & laughs with her--
the chickens flourish into 
each other & the pigs kick their
hooves impatiently into
the dirt & hay as they pray
to be assumed with the humans
into the celestial dream
where the farmer & his wife
leave their bodies--
she think the telescope
might be his mistress-- the way
it kisses him again
& again around the rim of his eye--
tells him there are bodies so
much larger than a field--
offers him a chance to 
follow the orbitals
of the dwarf planets--
so far & so cold they forget to
grow when they're supposed to
in the spring--
she stands by the window of her
room-- rests her feet on the radiator
while she watches her husband 
kiss & kiss & kiss the 
night sky-- beyond him
only she can see the field turn
into constellations-- an infallible 
mirror of the sky--