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Carefully he
selects
a teabag from
a large
variety of
options
finding one
for sore throats
then standing
for a few minutes
at the
cupboard choosing
a cup from a
lifetime of cups
finding one in
the back
hidden a dark
blue
I forget where
I picked
you up he
mutters forgiveness
is the simple
fruit
of
self-knowledge the water
just boiling
he pours and waits
letting it
steep and steam
every second
healthier
every second your
name
While
contrails play
X marks the
spot
above the
ruined city
I sit in
dappled shade
reading
Leopardi
like a prince
on holiday
with the good
sense to enjoy
this gem-like
day
the abandoned
hillside
of this night
perched
above the sea
in the silent distance
until I
neither think nor feel
my heart skips
a little
at the storms ahead
who remember eternity
so much
clearer
and the
foundering
than we do
Often in our
youth
when we felt
an anachronism
creep near
soon a god
would step
out from
behind the stony
curtain of the
bodies
we loved
through
in those days
now I feel had
he said
by my own
perceptions
which the past
is full of
hundreds of
years later
had and
humbled
by our own
youthful courage
which could
only
carry us so
far
I have never
been more
exasperated with
myself
and strangely
never
more
compassionate
with the
exasperation
I feel coming
toward me
and through me
but how many
chances
to kiss and make
up
do I give myself
before my
compassion
peters out and
my eternal exasperation
gives up on
itself
I grew these
from seed:
two wonderful
arms
two wonderful
legs
and wonderful
how two
proved the
basis for
everything I
grew
and killed and
grew
imagine
traveling miles
for a
particular color
an idea with
childhood
written all
over it
as if it weren’t
a red and purple
sea hustling
a predatory people
but an
eggshell you
gave me to care for
a
spear of celery
and a
cold sunny
afternoon’s
three wasted
wishes we will
build
new bird
houses and
they will come
back
three days
they cried
circling the
emptiness
where their
hedge had stood
where they had
nested for years
and that was
just one group
A landscape of
quiet dust
under the
glass dining table
as the sun
passes by
creating and
destroying spaces
we have only
accumulated
into matter
for a while
as a barrier
against sadness
is built or a
dam against some
flood bound to
rearrange us
but not to be
carried away
or get
enchanted by
material freshly
emerging
from the
stitching of millions
of tiny
invisible elements
under
uncertain conditions
we
misrepresent as ours
our river our
time
but to get
intelligently lost
and sleep in a
strange bed
and wake among
stars
Hey cadastre
hither line by
line I’ve
set this least
easement
in higher
indifference
in the metes
of love
and bounds
where they
kept their
original t
the forerunner
of more
modest
languages
unmarked by
monuments
as how you say
eagerly
similar and
specious
in our anytime
going
from grace to
grace
Especially
beautiful tonight
is the
sleepwalking wind
through alleys
through creeks
a cold
psalmist in cloaks
of living silk
a cellular succulence
in the density
of the god of darkness
driving the
moon
out of sight singing
I have something to say
but I have no one
to say it to
Even there at
the level
of bacteria
a signal to
stop
swimming and
lodge in the
walls
of the small
intestine a
terrific
readiness to
respond
to radically
changing
chemical
environments
to return to
prior
conditions and
impulses
no longer relevant
colonies
angrily
driving out
all moisture and life
You were sitting
in the sun I
was
sitting in the
shade
the hearing in
my
left ear is
going
going where I said
don’t you
remember
you didn’t
hear me
it was always
your
insouciance I
loved
most about you
I
heard you
clearly say
the sun was
warming
you the shade
was
cooling me off
can a heart
have
tinnitus mine
was
ringing off
the hook
don’t you
remember
you didn’t
hear me
If our better
angels
are as far
above us
as we are
above the
animal
kingdoms
the composite
flower
each so
intricately is
I try to
imagine their
profound
frustration
infinite
patience as
our
trainer-teachers
whispering and
herding us
through
our lives toward
some
harvest like how
today my angel
told me to inspect
my hands every
day
and ask myself
if I
remember how I
made them and
why
We do what we
love
and we love to
do it
we love evil
and we do evil
thinking
because we love it
it must be
good
or we love to
do
whatever and
call it
good because
all these
preliminary
questions
must get
discussed
among our
incipient selves
but then the
audience
goes blind and
silent
the curtain
opens on a castle
an old man is
knocking
at the gate
A very old
couple at Fry’s
staring at the
heartburn
remedies
display
their
effortless calm
in the face of
the diaper
aisle
how they hold
still
as the
cosmetics section
passes them by
trembling
I meet them
again
heading for
the exit
him holding a
clutch
of yellow freesias
her hugging a
fifth
of scotch
Today I turned
to Mani for help
he of the
Manicheans
whose name
means the jewel
who was flayed
alive
by those who
came to believe
killing
someone ends their life
forgetting
their home with the gods
just an idea
among ideas
among streets
and bridges
how can we
still not speak
to one another
as light
to light still
not know
ourselves as
children
of the sun and
moon
From the
gleams
in gems to
the colors
in flowers and
wings
to the fires
in eyes to
the light in
minds
to the seeing
past
bodies past
brains
to pictures in
the past
from the
beginning of
memory to the sense
of a future
self the true
long-prepared-for
one
but for what
for
whom if not
you
On second
thought
there is the
other cheek
half-empty twin
the double and
the object subject
to
incomprehensibility
which is not
merely
a misunderstanding
or a
compensation for
the one who
loses you
half-way
through
the
conversation
but the one who
finds you
in his eyes
The sunlight
through
their tail-wings
when
they’re at the
feeder
in the morning
is
lovely and
ferocious
but do you
really think
writing in crumbling
columns is a
way of
imprisoning their
songs
it seems I
have
encouraged a
war
that can only lead
to their destruction
then my own
the afternoons
are calmer
when
the feeder’s
empty
I’m alone
Maybe you have
just one more
day inside you
have to shed
before
conclusively
without
pretense
you’re dead
and start to
stink as dying
process calls
out
to dying
process
along the stem
your five arms
into ashes
shrivel
what was petal
what was flame
Losing warmth
to gain
precision
as soon as
there
are two there
are
edges gathered
together
in our names
bird seed for
the birds
gone to war
for
isn’t that
itself the canary
I know how you’re
stalking
me no not you
clear reader
of the secret
script
a forest of
nasturtiums
the trees of
paradise
in our ant
days
Is it still
hard
in heaven
to get used to
the
decontamination
of love from
rage when we
really see how
narrow how
nervous
we were on
earth
what is
reasonable
treatment when
you
glimpse
driving an
old man
sleeping
on the side of
the road
our sorry
stories
even in heaven
still hard to
hear
That first
night
orange trees
blooming
one huge
silent bell ringing
how it shakes
what is
greener
twenty years
later
a few drops of
water
dribbled on
the tongue
all we could
swallow
of one another
I was dying of
you
in the next
bed
it was
something you said
cut me dead
I saw death
pass through
my yard on his
way
to my neighbor’s
last night I
dreamed death
comes to each
of us in the
form
of a tiny
spider
three days
before
our actual
death
which we brush
off quickly
with
perhaps a
shiver
a thing so insignificant
no one remembers
afterwards
getting tagged
As long as
you make a
habit
of living you
have to break
it however
tomorrow
distantly pain
takes up the
refusal
to change why
else are you
dancing to
gather
lift and
contrail
mouse-tracks in
the snow up to
a certain hush
of wings
The fortune
left on the
table
but the cookie
gone
I keep moving
around the
room
until the
sunlight
fills it the
guest
has arrived
then
I lie down and
let
his warmth
roll
over me the
tips
of the trees
are
illuminated
first
then my toes
he holds me
to the fire of
his love I had
to say it or
have we not
all
come to be
extinguished
on this earth
not air to
breath
but light
