Whether I grow old, betray my dreams, become a ghost

or die in flames
like Gram,

Because silence is unguarded and truth
Has an odd way of putting his snout
In at times like this I teach the children

We ate alone in the immense dining room.
My mother got me to eat each night
by saying any meat was buffalo meat.

The seven-story trees
on the jogger-thronged hill
beyond your back garden

Pei designed the building with views,
smooth masonry, and the mountains aligned
for a photo opportunity; inside are files
sufficient for forever, for fine tuning weather.

This is where I count the hours
in the word “carnival.”
Where autumn dries its bones.

Falling to
his potting-mix-brown
avenue—

This place, too, has its own integrity:
split, ruined, abandoned
walls of chipped blue cursed

A red hand on the horse’s flanks
One hundred-and-some years ago
In these same precincts

… the moon comes up in her
secondness, left edge not
filled in quite, the abject not filled in quite
    but trying …