That was a pretty roundabout answer to what
I would have to say
was one of the more straightforward of my questions.

Ink

I am looking for a word from you.
I’ve combed the landscape of my body,
I’ve travelled its dark rivers.

Wine-Dark Sea

A.H.

the sea in small slow waves
washes over the pebbles
up and back again

Where Have We Come From?
What Are We?
Where Are We Going?
                a painting by Paul Gauguin, 1897

Splotchy underbrush of suggested trees, eely
vines, fresh water holes springs around us.

On cleared earth, kittens play in bowls or are

The Other Life

I was born in a town with two traffic lights.
It was always early in the morning.
The birds did not have feathers, or beaks.

"Once More Valuable Than Gold"
—Guidebook to the Wieliczka Royal Salt Mine

         Were we in Grand Rapids,
   at the Amway
Plaza, say, the seventh or eighth person       

In their distorting internal mirrors,
the battered and in pain
become the dragons mauling them.

Where Are You Going With That Wrench

A switch went and is going to take up the trip.
Jiggle the handle, engineers! Getting out of the train
to fix it yourselves? Be serious! We have

Nicodemus Makes an Analysis

                 Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Very truly, I
                tell you, no one can see the kingdom of
                God without being born again." —John 3:3

Jerusalem, before sunrise

Thesis: That the body cannot repent
of its own nativity, cannot re-form,

The miracle began with a miracle.
I was sitting in my gold-trimmed chariot
(well, not exactly my chariot—like all