There are high places

that don’t invite us,

sharp shapes, glacier-

scraped faces, whole

ranges whose given names

slip off. Any such relation

as we try to make

refuses to take. Some

high lakes are not for us,

some slick escarpments.

I’m giddy with thinking

where thinking can’t stick.

STILL LIFE, WITH HER THINGS

Today her things are quiet

and do not reproach,

each in its place,

washed in the light

that encouraged the Dutch

to paint objects as though

they were grace—

the bowl, the

goblet, the vase

from Delft—each

the reliquary

of itself.

THE WELL OR THE CUP

How can

you tell

at the start

what you

can give away

and what

you must hold

to your heart.

What is

the well

and what is

a cup. Some

people get

drunk up.

CHARMS

The dead do not

become stars or ghosts.

In fact, they are

hardly undone.

Soon their randomly

dispersed parts

reappear one

by one on

foreign hosts—

the beloved ear

or freckled arm,

separate as a

milagro or bracelet

charm. It is not

grotesque, though

odd. Even a piece

does us some good.

ABSENCES AND BREAKS

It’s what we can’t

know that interests

us—the pre-Greeks

or Australopithecus—

where there are more

absences and breaks

than bits of bone

or pot. It’s not

news, but it

fascinates—our

love of hints, our

mending minds that

love to patch up

other times like

plates, and how this

might extrapolate

to hearts: explaining

how here can be

too much matching part.

LIGHTHOUSE KEEPING

Seas pleat

winds keen

fogs deepen

ships lean no

doubt, and

the lighthouse

keeper keeps

a light for

those left out.

It is intimate

and remote both

for the keeper

and those afloat.

LATENTS

Just the hints, say

the side ridges of

fingerprints that

don’t rule out

innocence; or

the loose approaches

to tightening mazes;

ambiguous, smudgy

places. The dilation

dark absorbs; the

thing we don’t

think through

before it happens:

all the early

stations of desire—

the first slight tug

against the string

that threads the

wire that threads

the cable that

guys the bridge

that alien traffic

plies.

TUNE

Imagine a sea

of ultramarine

suspending a

million jellyfish

as soft as moons.

Imagine the

interlocking uninsistent

tunes of drifting things.

This is the deep machine

that powers the lamps

of dreams and accounts

for their bluish tint.

How can something

so grand and serene

vanish again and again

without a hint?

LATE JUSTICE

Late justice may

be more useless

than none. Some

expungings or

making-rights

or getting-backs

lack the capacity

to correct. The

formerly aggrieved

become exacting

in unattractive

ways: intolerant

of delay, determined

to collect. And shocked—

shocked—at their

new unappeasableness,

who had so long

been so reasonable.

BACKWARD MIRACLE

Every once in a while

we need a

backward miracle

that will strip language,

make it hold for

a minute: just the

vessel with the

wine in it—

a sacramental