The Cubans are vaccinating anything
live they can find and burning the rest.
My childhood pours gasoline over the toppled cows and pigs,

The central divide of the body is invisible,
only hinted in the dip of the back
along the spine, or the primal hair

I rented an atelier attached to the flat
of a fading French film star, Marie-Claire—
who sighed, shaking out her trademark titian hair,

And there you are, painted into the picture :
Bricklayers and courtiers are making their beds
In apartments on the margins behind you.

You can take my hand
anywhere. Tonight,
let it be the story of smoke

Each day the purple clematis climbs further up the wire beside the kitchen door
Green fingers twine around the strands of wire
And soon there is another blossom with a yellow star at its center

When Alexander Kinglake was seventeen,
the pasha of Egypt sent a young giraffe
as a gift to Charles X, King of France,

Because the painter knew that history,
when it happened, happened in Venice,
it's on the steps of the Riva

Knowledge is huge and generous. Here she sits,

bracing her legs like pillars so they'll hold

the book she opens, peeking at Peace's old

Some of the sailors
change easily. Brought
into my presence