—like Venice, save
that the canals are scarlet, and decay
impossible, neither are the boats

Loaf of bread or sheep's
head, rubber nubbed
for traction on flatnesses

Young, nondescript,
well, she's a little fat,
the life and fall of thick '

In the midst of winter, where moonlight carves
stillness into the shape of hills, there is
a cabin feeding smoke to the low-hanging sky,

I knew a girl who also had a ghost
living in her mouth-what we called dumb

and meant the sound of all her clicking rings,

"Oh, how we love the glow of holy gold!"
They curled, cavorting in the evening sun .
"Oh, but centuries have passed since the rage

Books say parents
didn't mourn their children

in previous centuries, that

At my wedding, my father, ten years dead,
practices what Isaac Babel called
         the "genre of silence"—that is,

How can there be a book that maps these continents
         of clouds that drift
apart, reshape their puzzle pieces, and coalesce into new

 

Yes, my Captain, I was there.
I was the one punching the buttons of the radio

until the right commercial came on