My God, they were all so beautiful,
each parchment trumpeting its cursive praise
of Allah, whose residence m Istanbul

In my home we take turns with the remote
and whoever's turn it is calls the show.

Rule two: a change of turn must occur

All he could see from this scene over Bluehill, Maine
(no distortions here: the work is from a seagirted light),
is enough of a world for any man, it seems plain

Because I want to watch them do what I would like to do
if I were free, and because it is late and I am tired
and out for what I say is my nightly walk, I stop

Once a child's poem began a pond of time
what followed must have flowed from what a child

How different any house looks from outside
and from within. I used to circle mansions
finding out, through guessing and good luck,

He tells of headless people with eyes on their shoulders,
dog-headed people who bark, one-legged people
who hop fast, mouthless people fed by the scent

Across my work yard the bones lie,
a rubble in crests and waves, piled
white, grooved brown, ocean to ocean—

I watched Preacher Benson plowing his back garden with a mule
to the sprung clacking of the screen door,
and it’ll sound that way when the century turns.

Something about the ironing board made him
leave it behind, angular in the emptied living room,

beautiful as a heron, all nobility