Cups and swords the prophet fed from, led with,
and an inlaid box with a hair from his holy beard,
all wrought with gold and strewn with jewels like fistfuls

The strong horseshoe shape of a horse’s mouth
Of his teeth, set that way of a suitcase handle

And the way a bit, in just that way, pulls him:

There are many facts in the world.
Most are passengers, but some
Drive the car.

Sitting down, unfolding
the paper, without looking
you raise the light toward the pipe.

tonight I was reminded of our house in England,
the little record player that always skipped.
Our dozen records seemed such a luxury, although

The light of the moment becoming a memory—
that was their subject: as if the present
could be haunted by its own nostalgia.

For a long time she pretended
she could remember. There were little tricks
involved, schemes and inventions, or so we thought

Because so much consequential thinking
happens in the rain. A steady mist
to recall departures, a bitter downpour

The war is over.
The builders come:
they build doors with archways; the ceilings are high

Drones out brittle, weary invocations, the certainty
                                      of fruit now distant as the first word
On God’s tongue. Such disarray. So much leaf-rot,