where she used to

stand before the sink,

a worn-out place;

beneath her hand

the china knobs

rubbed down to

white pastilles;

the switch she

used to feel for

in the dark

almost erased.

Her things should

keep her marks.

The passage

of a life should show;

it should abrade.

And when life stops,

a certain space—

however small—

should be left scarred

by the grand and

damaging parade.

Things shouldn’t

be so hard.

THE PAST

Sometimes there’s

suddenly no way

to get from

one part to

another, as though

the past were

a frozen lake

breaking up. But

not from the

top; not because

it’s warmer

up here; it’s not.

But from underneath

for some reason—

perhaps some heat

trapped on its own

for so long it’s

developed seasons.

REVERSE DRAMA

Lightning, but not bright.

Thunder, but not loud.

Sometimes something

in the sky connects

to something in the ground

in ways we don’t expect

and more or less miss except

through reverse drama:

things were heightened

and now they’re calmer.

FAKE SPOTS

Like air

in rocks, fake

spots got here

really far back.

Everything is

part caulk.

Some apartments

in apartment blocks

are blanks;

some steeples

are shims. Also

in people: parts

are wedges: and,

to the parts they keep

apart, precious.

LEGERDEMAIN

Some days one gets

the in but not

the out part of the

rabbit/hat trick.

And the longer

a creature stays,

the worse it sticks.

Dispatch means

so much, one

remembers again.

A thing can get

too conjured

for legerdemain.

HOUDINI

Each escape

involved some art,

some hokum, and

at least a brief

incomprehensible

exchange between

man and metal

during which the

chains were not

so much broken

as he and they

blended. At the

end of each such

mix he had to

extract himself. It

was the hardest

part to get right

routinely: breaking

back into the

same Houdini.

HIDE AND SEEK

It’s hard not

to jump out

instead of

waiting to be

found. It’s

hard to be

alone so long

and then hear

someone come

around. It’s

like some form

of skin’s developed

in the air

that, rather

than have torn,

you tear.

LEAST ACTION

Is it vision

or the lack

that brings me

back to the principle

of least action,

by which in one

branch of rabbinical

thought the world

might become the

Kingdom of Peace not

through the tumult

and destruction necessary

for a New Start but

by adjusting little parts

a little bit—turning

a cup a quarter inch

or scooting up a bench.

It imagines an

incremental resurrection,

a radiant body

puzzled out through

tinkering with the fit

of what’s available.

As though what is is

right already but

askew. It is tempting

for any person who would

like to love what she

can do.

PITCHER

A pitcher molds

the air in it, dividing

from the air beyond

the air it holds. And

should the pitcher