Demolition
I resign myself to the telling. The story
builds itself new. Like snow, brief glitter
drifting through a vacuum,
I walk between rooms, take notes,
like belief to a door, what the hall,
a maze, as means against the old urgency
to describe how it feels. This light that,
though weightless, still breaks
through. In this version of conclusion,
everything contains its own pale dust.
Self-Portrait with Dice and Bowl
I believed there was only one life. A life like dice
thrown into a bowl, across the inlaid mosaic—doves
scared from what must be
a holly bush—spreading brokenly. I’ve been wrong
about more than I’d care to admit, which is how I say
I owe chance an apology.
Nothing’s changed. Certainty, still, is an attempt
to dismantle. To deny the hand that throws,
rearranging what small gold variables there are.
Map Fragment
Or here, where the water is torn by motion
thought at first restlessness, now, honesty. Shimmer of
say how often you’ve denied the meaning
that, spurred hard in the ribs, gives way.
Here, indistinguishable from the line
at which a landscape disappears.
Furthest dune’s seagrass—take the wind as evidence
for how proof comes slowly, alternating,
persuasion, patience—a wavering goodbye;
a woven crown lifted so—goodbye.
* * *