The only tall trees are on islands. Autumn
fires keep the land clear—The river
suddenly went slippery and jade. On its banks

As a kid I never thought of “pain” as
  something I felt. What I felt I could not
name or share. Now out the window I watch

Up in the mountains, deep gorges had split the rock into sharp knives. A whole civilization lived up there, where the sky was so blue it seemed to exist in depth for ever. Their cities (and I was never able to discover if, in fact, they had any) could not be seen. 

White’s designed to fake an edifice,
but the matted crenellation of reed-thatch
throws it to the side. A squadron of crows
clarifies the rhythm, carries the eye through

A large room, with an upright harpsichord in one corner. A young lady was playing the instrument, whose face was heavily carved with cherubs and fruit. The young lady played a series of English folksongs and then slipped into Bach’s Passacagliain C minor.

A watch. An old one used to hanging from the black silver satin pocket of a grandfather, swinging when he walked.

All day I have written words:
My subject has been that. Words. 
And I am wrong. And the words.

The point of clothes was line,
a shallow fall of cotton over childish hips
or a coat ruled sharp, shoulder to hem

  A daffodil from Emily’s lot
I lay beside her headstone
on the first day of May.

Death invited to break its horns
on the spread
cloth. To drop its head