The ocean climbs the beach in search of salt.
It chases off the piper. It licks away
The driftwood. Mulling over his latest fault,

The sky flashes past us while we sleep,
deep in our beds, drowning,

cello-shaped in our linen sheets,

In every uprising there's an instant
when street corners look like movie sets and
the protesters feel self-conscious, like
extras in Ben-Hur. Just now

Already, the moon. What wouldn’t come with such
A moon? Invisible stars foretell
The precious night. What wouldn’t come, as bees

Her heart fails her and the body holding it
lies on its side, the lungs taking on fluid
so it will be, we are told, like drowning
we can’t stop and each week’s watch is a hot

Fifty Hans Holbein heads
From the Queen's collection:
Wyatt and Surrey so real

Not the wrist of the sunset
which sinks every night
below the electrical wires—

Mother grips an orchid to her smallish purse
And lifts her face to the photographer
Who, like me, now stands and waits for Father

After the rabbits and doves 
and the sawed-in-two lady, 
slowly unscrew your arms 

speaking over the telephone while ironing a blouse
with French cuffs