I feel so very grand
at this solemn
              and futile hour

will mark the completion,at last,
of nearly ten years’ design.
Soon to rise on a peak in the Chilean desert,

was first performed in 1703, shortly after
the deaths that stirred Chikamatsu Monzaemon
to write his drama. Sometimes criticized

In the Parable of Fire a driver who has been dozing
lowers his car window and pitches his cigarette
into a gulley at midnight. As the spark smolders

The gargle of water through the pipes
The rattle of water in the ceramic tub,
and the day is washed off, but what's clean?

A long silk
is pulled quickly
over my upturned palms

The unsigned architecture of loneliness
is becoming taller, finding a way farther
above the horizontal flowering
of the Cold War, the peonies

The frail smoke and virtues of the season blind 
us, almost with hands, and which of us can instruct 
the other now? I will have to find your body 

A day too large for the summer, standing up
out of the bus lanes, puzzled on its face
like the miniaturist who becomes famous

The near past and the near future are poor,
with no accession of hands, no bright legs—
useless, untender absences with bronze torsos.