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1.
Though
unresolved, you too
assume the unions
of morning. Rocks break
on the sill. You wake. So for you
there's this again,
these birds absurdly singing,
that cover the sough of night.
Already, hours ago,
they've ridden hard to the east but failed
to spear with beaks the sound
of their own singing, and returned.
Now you appear
in the morning and go out for mail.
Neither of us speaks. We pull
the walls down close around us.
2.
The
nose of the plane dips once,
gently, and I touch (my hand
on the window) the edge of America.
Where
all the lines
are tap-tap-tapped ("That's
The Man at the door again")
and at night
in
the northern regions suspect beasts
with long hair on their faces come out
of the trees and pad across the border
towards Canada.
Guilt
expires, even as air
congeals away from the mouths of the jets.
You
are there, above, behind
the glass. With fishnet stockings
and a dress of green sequins.
I've
nothing to declare:
the remains of London. I see you,
the stairs are too slow. Through
escalators, electric
doors and people we rush
forward together, our mouths opening
round like those of fish, and we try —
we
clutch and move our hands slowly
in the suddenly stale air, to embrace.
3.
"Under all is the land"
but the land, above all, declines
to acknowledge us. We pass across it
weightless as shadows;
we barely register.
Vegetables posture in the shade
of the garden as afternoon lengthens
between two trees, and I grope
towards fidelities neither understood
nor (I think) believed in,
skin
yellowing like the spruce tops
of old guitars, fingers curling.
We walk among cypress,
those knobbed, hollow roots, by the edge
of water and much else.
Tonight,
thoughts will flare and subside
in the hearts of oak logs. Tomorrow
friends will recover their senses
and disappear into vacations,
turtleneck sweaters and careers.
4.
"Listen: I have
possessions. A name. Books. A Ferris wheel,
an Otis elevator. I can make
tiny fireworks — skyrockets out of matches
and tinfoil. I can walk
barefoot across an acre of eggshells, how
can you pass that up?"
5.
Through
all this morning's small failures,
which go off in waves to port and starboard,
you push. Silences, pulled from their roots,
hang above our heads. The day swings
towards whatever zenith it has waiting
or will accomplish, while through dusty panes
sunlight, also silent, goes about its business,
sharpening every edge of the room's shadows.
6.
Each
time you open them,
I say, speaking of your eyes
that watch me like acorns,
you're a little bit emptied.
"And
what of these sounds
rolling in my ears?"
Useless hands, refused lodging.
I
tell you: Each evening
the sky puts on ugly faces
and goes out to scare white-eyed children.
Look!
The little house
departing
in its mother's shoes.
7.
The
dead horse still falling
Under this pale sun
I am farther away
From myself Than ever
Retreating
Each
time I turn
From the edge
There's the sound
Of flies Returning
Lugging the world back with them
My
eyes drawn
To the sound
Up to this bower of leaves
Through which Light
Rains down
So
many days
Spent foolishly
Lost now
Coins Of their suns
Fed into meters of anger
8.
Now
wind withers away from roof's edge.
We watch its footsteps retreat
in the grass. Our luggage bulges
with sheets of paper crumpled to balls.
On each a word is written — jacket perhaps.
Sock, T-shirt, glove. We take these out,
arrange them neatly in drawers, on shelves.
There is so much to say, the world
has so many messages for us.
Now
wind has gone into the trees,
where it springs from branch to branch.
A leaf strikes the edge of the moon
and, severed, begins to fall. "Look—"
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