The eye was a masterful horseman
Hardened, proud and fierce.

There the sun was, dying in the abyss,
in a haze of shadow, no sign of resurgence,
cooled, and cooling, slowly, dismally

Lowing of cattle: your voice, to the mind of Virgil,
felt mellifluous, as it does this evening
when a cloud slips off into the dark of the sky,

The thing was exquisite and superbly arranged.
It happened in April, and took place on a day
So mild you'd say love purposely made it that way.

That is enough for a life to do. But a poem
Is so much less—a poem is even smaller
Than a fraction of a breath, than a momentary gleam

But such as it is, I have wanted it to be
Part of everything: tiny, but indispensable.

Heraclitean, for instance: the world as a gaseous
Shimmer, like afterburner fumes in the oily night sky
Outside Carbondale, where lovers pass through the flux

In the 7-11 parking lot, white boys are terrorized
By a Lincoln stereo punching out 98-decibel jazz. The scene
Reminds them unconsciously of high-art cinema shot

At that critical moment, she whispered later, the panic
   of absolute doubt breathed on her left breast
While he was touching her right: what if this light reflected

After the D&C, she stood waiting for a taxi
In the clinic awning’s shade. It was afternoon in her
Comfortable little city, early rush hour. She could hear