Because distance becomes tumescent in the heat
the haze erases buildings out of walking range.
We’ve considered walking as far as the backyard

Because water and sewer mains are destined
In corruption to flow together
Toward death's vast leavening.

By silence he meant it's bad enough
To squander words on paper. Don't waste them.
Along with your breath, on air. By exile

In all honesty, saying this
As if reaching out to hold your hand
And attest to a truth, my tongue

Knowing that Penn had dabbled, periodically,
in paints, noting the modest watercolor
of his young, late wife, above the files,

At the bay's edge and day's end, we comb
the shore for beach glass, clouded grains
of clarity among the ground-down,
cast-off shells of other naked creatures

Nakedness isn't guilty,
But it's never unaware. At night
The white blossoms go on

I got off my plane in a strange country
And saw you standing in the airport
With a blind smile, your eyes like diamonds,

In the branches the light

                   so that the limbs

                            go out

I wished you awake for the bird song,
Such a sophisticated bird song at five in the morning,
Like a twelve bar blues, each chorus had a variation—