You approach me carrying a book
The instructions you read carry me back beyond birth
To childhood and a courtyard bouncing a ball

Eric Dolphy can’t wake up:
the green light’s still burning
by the gate. Pine cones

The margin of mountain grass moved from our feet
down
       the apron of

an erasure of “The Letter” by “Currer Bell”

an erasure of Edwin Arlington Robinson’s “The Old King’s New Jester”

I write this for your eyes and ears and heart

If it makes your eyes sore

                                 ears weary

The fog comes in, flatter
than ever. The air, apparently

is blue somewhere, not here.

The stars flow beneath the water
The clouds freeze or collapse
In laughter, lure like a pledge

The door behind me was you 
and the radiance, there like 
an electric train wreck in your eye 

Beautiful beyond belief
to look at you the whole way
would be to walk away maimed