Dementia’s wheeled to the window
for the fireworks, like boneless 

Tighter and tighter wringing my hands
Till they be riven—
Between us are not the miles of earth

A day will come, lamenting, I hear,
When bright no longer with thrones, fires, tears,
My eyes which once incandescent ruled

How they flare up, like a tinder bonfire
On the plaza of night, our holy convictions!
Before the usurping edict of tenderness

No more so rich are the gifts of the gods.
On the shores of a different river now
Through wide and widening sunset gates

The grapes in the royal garden have rusted
And the concubine, waiting, sleeps by the wall.
Veins of Palestine, heavy with sap,

Tousle-haired star
Hurrying into nothing
Out of a horrid nowhere

  Her night-dreaming laugh
wound the house around her fingernail.
  Spooled it so tightly

I want her to be what I need
her to be, i.e., a mirror for my
want. There is no man but owns his own soul.

There is skill to it, how you hold your back all day, the dole
of force behind the stroke, the size of bite, where
to hit, and knowing behind each swing a thousand others wait