I saw the crow first, on the shoulder turned 
to mud, then its shadow, then the cage
of bone arcing up from the muck. January 

The line, its sleek ark. Stow the creatures where the calendar
can’t snatch them. Coal is unreasonable in all its phases.
Into the open pearls, I was, at first, sure I’d read. The coasts of it, 

You stow them to the rear of worship: bits of jagged iron, 
candle nubs, miscellaneous gears and levers, each perfect 
unto itself but useless apart from its fellows. The human 

When a man threw his fist into a wall next to my eye
I said that was love, that love was rage. 
I was in the habit of loving anyone who laid a cold hand

When I was five, my grandfather took me to the tomb
                of King Suro, lifted me over the stone fences

                and watched me slide down the mound over 

              is that we should begin in transit,                      in or near a vessel,
as we do here        and then we leave this place             and
the skittering quality that follows                                        festive scene, song

                Pop Imaginary
returns                                                         and ascending gray

A man in long shorts had a tiny dog
he tossed into the leaves piled at the edge 
of people’s yards, the dog 

While watching 
a movie
with a lovely, unyielding, 

this sharpness of pines, this gravel loose
beneath us, faltering with each rustle, each step, with what we’re not
saying to each other—Now your flashlight’s beam angles