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This moment from now on,
we will be or find
unflinching movement,
umbrellas out of a dream of Arle,
entryway to the tale I’d tell
if authorized I’d find
newsprint light to curl up my side,
up, up here
a view more dramatic for being partially obscured
more menacing, more full
like smudged ink taut like snow and shadows in wait like
crave to fall disaster.
This tension requisite for loss, which is to say movement,
the same in sails as in shoulders.

1
Rue me or court,
but look
into this august assurance:
form has to do with power and control
is one thing to do with power and control
makes due with power and control.

2
What happens when we all come
to look like our images.
She is come
to bind with dirt our fear,
deft punishment for heliotrope girlishness.
I’m butch  he says  but not stupid.

3
Would you still court me cosseted,
the curtains in a constant state of being drawn,
would you sail by over and again,
bound to the mast for protection
against these safely blank canvases,
these cheeks?

To crush between two sheets
of plastic; to mummify for public spectacle.

Translucent jars hold ancient organs,
naked in the eye of the forgiver.

Laminated clouds could be fog,
compressed into a pocket.

Glass bluebirds could wrap themselves in owners
who dust them regularly.

Jen’s boyfriend could weld himself to her side
now that he’s knocked her up.

A candle could circumlaminate a wick
for safekeeping.

Oklahoma, for one, has an abundance of land
lamination, borders stuck on borders.

Flies can be ignorlaminated
from the sticky tongue of the frog.

Windows can be ultralaminted by air
and air.

And mirrors can laminate every life
into one poisonous apple.

A pen tries to coerce their page
into the far back seat of the hot machine.

In 1989 I still knew how to dress. You didn’t know me then; I hadn’t thought I could ever meet you or earn you, I could only buy things and never give over my body’s or soul’s selves to anyone.

On the Via Margutta I leave myself and become this house, that courtyard,
That vin santo all apricot and grasses. Why search for symbols? There, in the perfect glass, rests the mouthful of
Perfect wine.

A nameless boy’s tongue startles me as much as chestnut honies.

Goethe’s Italy isn’t
Ours. In Termini, while nearby stone angels teeter and vibrate, their molecules aquiver like anyone else’s, their lyres and harps sounding to those who can still hear such threnodies and hymns, their tunics soft-falling, their river-watching stalwart, we linger too long over water and what used to be called cornetti, our eyes too rheumy to gobble up all that goldenrod Naples yellow with which we’re surrounded.

Soon.
Soon.
It is unlike me when faced by beauty to admit – in order to care for you more fully – defeat.

That the patch of dark sky
Through the grille grieves
The forbearing soul

Does not begin to describe
How quickly things tatter when
They are unattended to,

Tells us nothing new.
The world somehow—
Despiteful—mends itself.

‘That’s just how it is’—
You think—‘The envelope
They call it in business-and-industry,

But more like an horizon over
Which I see myself disappearing,
Swept in the wake of

Practicality, even desperation.’
Or you find yourself relaxed
In a grave of understanding.

The food is better,
Handcarved and luscious
As unsafe sex,

‘But what happens when
To quality management?
Can I buy back my experience?’

Think of windows at night:

A young woman approaches
The fluorescent panes of
The all-night auto-repair;

At the culinary school
A flock of chefs in white hats
Rolls pastry dough and

Gets the salad lecture;
In the high offices lights jump on;
Someone leans his

Forehead against the glass
Hands cupped around
His eyes to see out at—

The authorities? a lover? or beyond.
Whatever brought him there.
It was so much more or less obvious

In the closet of naïve production,
The way that—taking a shot
At it—waves, wildlife,

Distances, pets, feet,
Spouses, clouds, trees, words
Become part of the relentless pursuit.

Midnight: still ‘capable of belief,’
The serial psychology of weather
Curves like a spine

Through the affirmative.
‘What’—you think—‘this must be like
From the outside

Here on the verge of real change’
As the future reaches back
To batter us in particular ways.

‘If I must play the bad guy’—
You think—‘at least
Give me a thorough explanation.’

That the first things
And the last things are like
Massive towers at both ends

Provides some guidance,
As the lights wink out one by one
And the streets grow slippery.

*

I lift to make it remember, shake
and this thick wooden beam
holding on tighter, juts from the pile
as if it hears a great wind
this time without the weight
that never stops, to the end.

Snow must be something new for it
– the pain working its way through my wrist
my back – once on my shoulders
I hear rejoicing, voices in love
and the son seated around my neck
must have known he was taller
for awhile – this snow

will never stop –even in summer
these stones are hurled from sometimes so far
they’re tired by the time I find them
pulling one from the air
just by holding out my arms
by folding them, bending back
half-eaten nails: death

must have been sudden – all these boards
though the stench too
has been forgotten here – this beam
smelling from where his tiny legs
tighter and tighter till my lungs
take on a gallop, would jump
touch down: a snowfall
the dead will mistake for a roadway
wide enough for everyone at once
for the singing higher and higher.

*

The laces are new –they were cut
so a knot would hold my hand
and these shoes lead you across treetops

– this time you are flying, the shine
softer than where your shoes
wobbled, plunged, weightless

– I’m filling the air with knots
as if something you touched here
fell apart, knocking down walls

and sunlight – hold up your shoes
colder than masks – you become stronger
on fire again, flying

into the sun, close to my cheeks
– it’s simple. I wear your shoes
to visit you

or when their shine almost circles
you visit me
begin that climb the dead

can never forget and what’s still above
what’s enormous. This time
you are flying across the silence

from that first death on Earth
– it must have been a bird. Even now
pointing out the trees

my arms lift you into the wind
– easy and the crowd below
holds fast, knows it can be done

are following on foot, unafraid
their faces ridged, fixed: the dead
without a sound gaining height and belong.

*

Sniffing its footprints, this pebble
wants to start over – you lift it
and the sky too grows larger
heavier – you’re in the way.

It’s tearing apart some vague scent
all stone once had – you can make out
its tears, its warm pulse
its tongue stirs, reaching for words

for its throat and your blood
lines up closest to the surface
– all those years, this little stone
must think there’s still time

that your bones too will learn to stare
to heal, sledged from their mountainside
scattered and streams closer and closer
taking so long to empty.