Husbands are burning their wives;
The river, resigned, takes everyone in.

forever looking down for what I've lost:
a strand of fate I snipped and dropped and dread

but I’m afraid they’d wet the page, and you might think
     them tears.

al-Baghdadi picks his teeth with an archaic toothbrush. 
Salvadora persica from Babylon, 
a twig twisted green from the mustard tree.

I guess like losing anything, I thought
it was coming back at first. And then days
crowded round with nowhere else to go—

Blind bow spirit,

                           my mother,

                                               Beatrice

Every dwelling is a desolate hill.
Every hill is a desolate dwelling.

How all things shatter, fall away, and break.
In this time of my great happiness I pass
And repass the gates of the Holy Ghost

To the lightning bolt, burdened
Interpreter of the quick, bright
Scratch.