The red barn. The Vermont farm
you ran away from to the city
or vowed you'd retire to some day.

Ghosts peel from the wallpaper. They turn to foxes,
run red to the trees. Weather knots
at the corners of sleep and will not recede.

There is no death in the sun. I know it will look far otherwise
to anyone watching from shore, anyone standing

at the blue Aegean, pointing up at a mythical bird soaring

I can answer only to Adonis—
call me that, and you'll find I'm easily
managed. Some time ago, I was promised

   But what can we make of the artist beside him,
   working relentlessly, fabricating,
   past maestra, great creatrix, laboring still,

The logic of sleep draws me closer and closer to you,
taking the names of everything from me. My desire
to speak is suspended, my old reverence

Even the few here who regard themselves as aliens
Declare with their window boxes that they' re not ungrateful
For the happenstance of being alive,

The season's first few leaves fall.
A zoo is loosed in the grass.

Mourning is in the molecules, gravity

The buildings stand, with all intention changed
from what designed and built them—killer ants,
their Gallic genes resembling old blueprints,

All I can offer you now is weathered—
this face, these hands. I've lived too long underground.
My eyes cannot fix on the distance