One night in Portugal, alone in a forlorn
village at twilight, escaping her parents,
she saw a full moon baptized on the water

We stood in the midst
   of a great alluvial plain
         and felt the horizon coming

No one ever leaves
the building across the street
and I can’t explain why
I spent the summer
staring at its blank windows
and stony facade, its caged trees,
while the sun crawled
across the light-blue emptiness
yawning with clouds.

I. THE CRAVING
                The Odyssey, Book Twelve

I needed a warning from the goddess
and a group of men to lash me to the mast
hand and foot, so that I could listen

Work drives you like wind
between suburban houses, emptying cans.
You are invisible as air

We walked down the path to breakfast.
The morning swung open like an iron gate.

Long ago, someone
told me: avoid or.

Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkens—

These mail-ordered tulips,
shockingly gaudy,
open and close, re-open, re-close,

Here, where the rivers dredge upthe very stone of Heaven, we name its colors—muttonfat jade, kingfisher jade, jade of appleskin green.