to the left

a little,

sending down

a cliff.

Also toggles:

the idle flip

that trips

the rails

trains travel.

No act

or refusal

to act, no

special grip

or triple lock

or brake stops

crash; crash

quickens

on resistance

like a legal system

out of Dickens.

GRAVITY

Weight is a gift

you can’t simulate.

It is useless if

you take it on too late.

The post-pupid

butterfly looks stupid

walking with her wings.

Some are, some are not,

weight-bearing things.

CHEMISE

What would the self

disrobed look like,

the form undraped?

There is a flimsy cloth

we can’t take off—

some last chemise

we can’t escape—

a hope more intimate

than paint

to please.

DEFERRED SILENCE

There is a

deferred silence

which only follows

a deferred sound.

As when an oak falls

when no one is around.

The violence waits

for someone to approach

to have just stopped.

There is that ozone

freshness to the aftershock.

ATTENTION

As strong as

the suction cups

on the octopus

are the valves

of the attention.

If threatened

or pulled off

they leave welts

and pink rings

but also

can unstick

unfelt

from things.

FAILURE

Like slime

inside a

stagnant tank

its green

deepening

from lime

to emerald

a dank

but less

ephemeral

efflorescence

than success

is in general.

MATRIGUPTA

of Ujjain, India, wrote a poem that so pleased Rajah Vicrama Ditya HE WAS GIVEN THE ENTIRE STATE OF KASHMIR. The poet ruled Kashmir for five years (118–123) AND THEN ABDICATED TO BECOME A RECLUSE.

—Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

(What a Trojan horse)

thought Matrigupta,

rewarded for his verse

by Rajah Ditya

with one of the nicest

states in India.

(Why couldn’t it

have been a gold watch

or an inscribed plate?

I’ll never write again

at this rate.)

“I am too blessed,”

went the little thank-you

poem he had rehearsed,

but already his words

were getting reversed

and he said, “I am

blue tressed,” which was

only the first indication

of how things were in Kashmir

before his abdication.

WEAKNESS AND DOUBT

Weakness and doubt

are symbionts

famous throughout

the fungal orders,

which admire pallors,

rusts, grey talcums,

the whole palette

of dusts and powders

of the rot kingdom

and do not share

our kind’s disgust

at dissolution,

following the

interplay of doubt

and weakness

as a robust

sort of business;

the way we

love construction,

they love hollowing.

FAILURE 2

There could be nutrients

in failure—

deep amendments

to the shallow soil

of wishes.

Think of the

dark and bitter

flavors of

black ales

and peasant loaves.

Think of licorices.

Think about

the tales of how

Indians put fishes

under corn plants.

Next time hope

relinquishes a form,

think about that.

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

That’s water under

the bridge, we say,

siding with the bridge

and no wonder,

given the sloping ways

of water which

grows so grey

and oily, toiling

slowly downward,

its wide dented

slide ever onward;

we aren’t demented.