The beginning was hills, moss-covered stones,
October flowers. I climbed all day,
those damp beginnings. I felt

I can hear you in the bathroom: rinsing, splashing, steaming;
Three different kinds of sound slurred, the elements
Confounded by your actions. (Across the airshaft,

One red-winged blackbird can’t begin
Without the other, hidden in the cedars.
Listen, listen, listen,
For he struts between

The Seagull was a failure, the burlesque crowd began to shout
   “Intellectual rot!” And then, before dinner at the
   Hermitage

Will it rain? The rain says it will
as thunder pools in every vowel,

Yes, my Captain, I was there.
I was the one punching the buttons of the radio

until the right commercial came on

by sweet flour, sweet failure,
a daughter married old, a son gone bad.

Something about the ironing board made him
leave it behind, angular in the emptied living room,

she knew that moo shu pork
remains his singular post-coital consolation,

3 days, 6 meals, 8 coffees have I driven
just to see the island.
I have turned off the radio 90 times