He who finds his business in the slow, 
persistent study of one green stone, 
even a plain one chosen, let us say, 

People walk out of themselves into
the river. The surface
is a sound you can’t hear.

Entering a cave, or stepping outside at night,
artificial blindness, temporary
but absolute. And if I lost sight,

Is it a myth? And if so, what does it tell us about ourselves?

Is Kong a giant ape, or is he an African, beating his chest
like a responsive gong?

As evening lifted off the canals
and sounds we couldn’t see through,
muffled as a vaporetto moving through water

I know why all the old men want young 
girls, why the other old men love young 
boys, for I see how they are like 

When the Midwest sky is that old-clothes, cardboard 
Color, and the hillsides are too visible, 
In their poverty of intention, exposed, 

Under the olive trees the light pours out its seeds, 
poppies appear and begin to flicker, 
burning the oil that feeds their fire; 

        Their footsteps formed the paisley when Parvati, angry 
        after a quarrel, ran away from Shiva. He eventually 
        caught up with her. To commemorate their reunion, he 

Two old men, father-in-law and son-in-law, Liszt and Wagner, 
    are staying by Canal Grande 
together with the agitate woman who is married to King Midas