On the door, the butcher’s quaint bell—like an altar boy’s—
rings my arrival. This is the introit, it says, the butcher’s apron
pink with intimations of blood.

Look up. Your life is suddenly ending—
the pages yellow, the lamplight yellow—
the face of someone you love the halo

All summer, I watched them
make their ghostly caduceus through water—

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

Some nights are as black
as belladonna—the black that gathers
at the back of the throat when a boy's
voice falls over your head like a hood:

This time the mycorrhizal infection
at the crooked roots of a hazelnut tree
meets a set of conditions so knotted and invisible

   Because I make the big bucks fooling around
with words, in France sometimes I like to say
   "Sylvia Plath" instead of "s'il vous plait,"