Not the abrupt way, frozen
In the one glance of a painter’s frame,
Christ in the doorway pointing, Matthew’s face

That night they all gathered on the highest tower:
Astronomers, mathematicians and one magi from Syria
To read in the stars the glory of the King of Kings,

The heart’s reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest

He writes his memoirs. He is trying to explain the place of the hero in a system of necessities, to reconcile the notions of existence and fate that contradict one another.

I walk downhill and lean into the wind.
It is and isn’t the first time. Hour, weather,
errand all proclaim Now and Again.

After lunch, the Sunday strollers boil
on the pavement, two miles from Belleville,
which may be the upcoming quartier

If there is a God, he has a lot to answer for.
Crocuses, purple cups that bloom through snow.
Cerulean, cornflower, azure, turquoise, ultramarine.

One day it will vanish,
how you felt when you were overwhelmed
by her, soaping each other in the shower,

Into his kit when sent to the front he had tucked 
his black three-piece suit and through night 
after night of the frightful bombing, which

The secret is
not to be afraid, to 
pour the salt, letting your wrist