The life we didn’t live.
The time tepid as bronze.
The stacked air. The frozen rail.
The dripping of blue drops in summer.
The honey-trees, the brick façade,
the empty canyons of light
between Ferry Street and birch leaves
where a cloud drops a sock.
The sky. The records of clocks.
The wooden hours. The fort postcards.
The salvoes of breakfast paper
on exhibit somewhere.
The gears inert. The girls inanimate.
The dolly. The one side of a house,
the other four stories high.
The weave of poor shoals.
The hoops of brittle violets.
The tubing of cubed lilacs.
The sour voice. The nowhere special.
The lilting train. The old Queen.
The different kinds of musk and night.
The floorboards of the ocean.
The single step. The fourteen feet.
The oblong rooms of moss.
The apples. The cherries. The feathers.
The straw. The manure. The dirt.
The difficult gardens of your eyes.
The small fruits. The rubber necktie.
The baroque shadow of nude statue.
The accounted spots. The oats.
The wilting skaters that melt.
The wild and domestic square.
The dust that lounges on objects.
The objects. The rainy pears.
The frosted lakes. The hat.
The brush. The comb.
The strand of strange hair.
The weather. The receipts. The tapestry.
The description of home. The nerves.
The mending. The wake. The fog.
The flower cut-ups. The glass.
The balustrade. The sticking climate.
The stick. The story. The servant.
The chamber. The stamp. The rambler.
The pent chord. The penultimate.
The wind to tell us who we are.
The sloop of our look. The departing.
The advanced trust. The ordinary desires.
The mistress. The bus. The come hither of sleep.
The day. The hour. The Highlands.
The liberal miles of marsh grass. The leaves.
The leave-taking. The place. The sun.
The succession of rain. The decrepitude.
The refrain. The song.
The meadow of the wind.
The meadow in the wind.
The hired passage. And yesterday,
the lying down to recover breath.
The argument. The raiment. The tune.
The rust. The tributes of lost tribes.
The great minds of small force.
The tempest. The sleights. The self.
And the valley, covered in stars.
SEPTEMBER 2008