their capriccios, that

the dazzle of dispatch

displaces the originals.

As though brio

really does beat feeling,

the way two aces

beat three hearts

when it’s cards

you’re dealing.

A HUNDRED BOLTS OF SATIN

All you

have to lose

is one

connection

and the mind

uncouples

all the way back.

It seems

to have been

a train.

There seems

to have been

a track.

The things

that you

unpack

from the

abandoned cars

cannot sustain

life: a crate of

tractor axles,

for example,

a dozen dozen

clasp knives,

a hundred

bolts of satin—

perhaps you

specialized

more than

you imagined.

THE EXCLUDED ANIMALS

Only a certain

claque of beasts

is part of the

crèche racket

forming a

steamy-breathed

semicircle

around the

baby basket.

Anything more

exotic than

a camel

is out of luck

this season.

Not that the

excluded animals envy

the long-lashed

sycophants;

cormorants

don’t toady,

nor do toads

adore anybody

for any reason.

Nor do the

unchosen alligators,

grinning their

three-foot grin

as they laze

in the blankety waters

like the blankets on Him.

BLANDEUR

If it please God,

let less happen.

Even out Earth’s

rondure, flatten

Eiger, blanden

the Grand Canyon.

Make valleys

slightly higher,

widen fissures

to arable land,

remand your

terrible glaciers

and silence

their calving,

halving or doubling

all geographical features

toward the mean.

Unlean against our hearts.

Withdraw your grandeur

from these parts.

COMPOSITION

Language is a diluted aspect of matter.

—Joseph Brodsky

No. Not diluted.

Flaked; wafered;

but not watered.

Language is matter

leafing like a book

with the good taste

of rust and exposure

the way ironwork

petals near the coast.

But so many more

colors than rust:

or, argent, others—

a vast heraldic shield

of beautiful readable

fragments revealed

as Earth delaminates:

how the metals scatter,

how matter turns

animate.

PATIENCE

Patience is

wider than one

once envisioned,

with ribbons

of rivers

and distant

ranges and

tasks undertaken

and finished

with modest

relish by

natives in their

native dress.

Who would

have guessed

it possible

that waiting

is sustainable—

a place with

its own harvests.

Or that in

time’s fullness

the diamonds

of patience

couldn’t be

distinguished

from the genuine

in brilliance

or hardness.

COMING AND GOING

There is a

recently discovered

order, neither

sponges nor fishes,

which is never

at the mercy

of conditions.

If currents shift,

these fleshy zeppelins

can reverse directions

from inside—

their guts are

so easily modified.

Coming versus going

is therefore

not the crisis

it is for people,

who have to scramble

to keep anything

from showing

when we see

what we can’t see

coming, going.

NOTHING VENTURED

Nothing exists as a block

and cannot be parceled up.

So if nothing’s ventured

it’s not just talk;

it’s the big wager.

Don’t you wonder

how people think

the banks of space

and time don’t matter?

How they’ll drain

the big tanks down to

slime and salamanders

and want thanks?