And sleepless once when the needle slipped, he could not
say whether it pierced his hand or was at that moment 
born from it, stitching 

Privileges of Travel

You can’t forget you purchased it;
this private tour moves you

It began with the deer, dead in the water 
Just off my parents’ dock, 
And then there was a procession of horses,

        After the snow, after carved corpses
exposed the icy survival of the last 
     Donner Party members, the Belgian

He winds through the party like wind, one of the just
who live alone in black and white, bewildered

by the eden of his body. (You, you talk like winter
rain.) He’s the meaning of almost-morning walking home

Before God created people, 
he made animals,
unnamed and marvelous,

(What a Trojan horse) 
thought Matrigupta, 
rewarded for his verse 

Here is a little book of instructions. It says care
must be taken. For instance, a form of health as a
version of vanity (as when a poor stonecutter set up 

Tin cans rolling across the patio
wake me. Creeping downstairs I make a plan—
fling open the door to scare the racoons

Morgan retreats. He retreats into Schubert,
into his journal, into his imagination, his silence.
Away from the personalities, the out-of-order,