of a gallery of

ribbon-lovely thoughts

that vanish,

shadowy gardens

briefly visible

at shifting angles,

and, caught

in an ancient ash,

the single spiraling

horn of an otherwise

unfashioned animal.

THE SILENCE ISLANDS

These are the

Silence Islands,

where what outsiders

would consider

nearly imperceptible

aural amusements

land like coconuts

on the crystalline

hammers and anvils

of the native inhabitants.

Theirs is a refinement

so exquisite that,

for example, to rhyme

anything with hibiscus

is interdicted anytime

children or anyone weakened

by sickness is expected.

TICKET

This is the ticket

I failed to spend.

It is still in my pocket

at the fair’s end.

It is not only

suffering or grief

or even boredom

of which we are

offered more than

enough.

THIEF

Like a watch thief

fitted with secret pockets

he felt a downward tug

on his spring jacket.

Like spring grasses

harboring crickets

he emitted a suspicious

ticking racket.

All spring

he had the feeling

that he was the one

doing the stealing.

CHESHIRE

It’s not the cat,

it’s the smile that

lasts, toothy

and ruthless.

It’s facts like this

we like to resist—

how our parts

may lack allegiance

to the whole;

how the bonds

may be more casual

than we know; how

much of us

might vanish

and how well

some separate part

might manage.

YESES

Just behind

the door,

a second.

But smaller

by a few inches.

Behind which

a third again

diminishes.

Then more

and more,

forming a

foreshortened

corridor or

niche of yeses

ending in

a mouse’s

entrance

with a knob

too small

to pinch.

DEATH BY FRUIT

Only the crudest

of the vanitas set

ever thought

you had to get

a skull into the picture

whether you needed

its tallowy color

near the grapes

or not. Others,

stopping to consider

shapes and textures,

often discovered

that eggs or aubergines

went better, or leeks

or a plate of string beans.

A skull is so dominant.

It takes so much

bunched-up drapery,

such a ponderous

display of ornate cutlery,

just to make it

less prominent.

The greatest masters

preferred the

subtlest vanitas,

modestly trusting

to fruit baskets

to whisper

ashes to ashes,

relying on the

poignant exactness

of oranges to release

like a citrus mist

the always fresh fact

of how hard we resist

how briefly we’re pleased.

GREAT THOUGHTS

Great thoughts

do not nourish

small thoughts

as parents do children.

Like the eucalyptus,

they make the soil

beneath them barren.

Standing in a

grove of them

is hideous.

TEST

Imagine a surface

so still and vast

that it could test

exactly what

is set in motion

when a single stone

is cast into its ocean.

Possessed of a calm

so far superior

to people’s, it alone

could be assessed

ideally irascible.

In such a case,

if ripples yawed

or circles wobbled

in their orbits

like spun plates,

it would be the law

and not so personal

that what drops warps

and what warps dissipates.

CROWN