Everywhere I walk I walk into my past,
as if swimming upstream. There is a chord

Struck dumb midsong, your half-heart hard against the light,
you quail. One of two things will have transpired here:

 

I lived for a week in the bewilderment of arrival,
and, for a week, the bewilderment of arrival
         lived in me.

 

Now that you're dead, the peacocks scrabble around our yard,
searching for your bones. They'll not find them.
Like everything about you, they have risen.

 

The news reached me in Paris. Shadows in Paris.
Years later (in Paris) I would recall the scene

The canvas is gone. The floor laid bare.
What is seen are remnants. No garments,
no adornments except the unfinished