We all came down with it
in the seventeenth century, back

                                  when it was still possible
to die.

The skeleton clicks, endlessly doubling
over in my hands. Damned things that steal soul
and flee. Mine, the son of a virgin father

Nothing prepared me for your absence,
except, perhaps, the wind rattling stalks of autumn corn.

My world is always on the verge of silence,

I know I scared you last night by shaking,
the only time you were forced to share
a dream that seemed so bad upon waking.

My neighbor who tends the rhododendrons
across the street-mulching, fixing soil acidity,
watering by hose for a long hour each evening—

   All this gold and silver for her to have
a sitter's fifty-minute hour go on
   past lunch. Stomach mewing. Saffron shafts

Damned fool to make a hash of it like that.
Is this what comes from wanting to make art
out of the Middle East's sunbaked back streets?

She cannot get it to her mouth fast enough. She cannot
   stop herself.
What rush correspondence of blood replenishes dangerous

Somebody is always expecting you home.
Somebody's saying you've been gone too long
and stayed too late, and no good can come of it.

Nothing of the son occurred, of course,
not the evil dreams, not the dementia,
neither bovine diet nor bestial appearance,