A feeling which starts small

—in an imagined place, people meet
& don't have a hard time talking.
I had forgotten, like an exposure in waiting,
& associations stretched & linked together
why it is hard to foresee & expect
after this moment becomes known:
the small pieces which make a person.
There are still many new things to wonder,
like which direction your bed will face
or the way your feet will sound against the floor;
something is blinking in the distance—
there are still many things I feel you must know.

A Small Umbrella

an
avalanche
once told me to
err is human, but to
blame the cosmos for
tumbling intentions in a
rain
that
wont
stop
will
only grief
bring

Our Heigthening City

Where multiplicity forgoes general force, innocuously duplicated:
A can of soup, a can of soup, a can of soup, then Marilyn.

If it's all the same we'll just use tinfoil—tinfoil telephone,
tinfoil table, tinfoil tree tops. Tinfoil to the moon.

Let tonight's body lay straight and still,
in either exhibition or excavation. Each ending,

both vacuous and expired but not because of want. Ever widening
revolutions turning toward the sun, which is the will of the body.

Marilyn in red. Marilyn in blue. Marilyn for miles, whose image
creates a feeling of fullness, the comfort of recognition. The cadence

of human movement creating windows on top of windows on top of windows
and ushering away what cannot be duplicated, gathering all that can be

touched and most of what cannot. Sun-stroked buildings in the rapid
vacuum of their projections. Packed like people

who have no control over the changing of tracks, or the pause
in the darkness which makes all these choices easy to forget.

February

In February, the run-off to the reservoir is frozen.
I spend countless night falling asleep with the lights on,
stepping over salted wooden steps & bird feather.
I am tired of sharing.
In New York, the subway stations are just as cold as it is outside.
You can't believe how heavy the lids get in February,
or how the glare is enough to send any sensible person
right into the divider. A simple belief in the guiding line.
Everyone is driving fast in February and looking for parking.
No one tried to sell me anything and I am insulted.
I am certain I will only think of myself in February
& that you will allow me. Every morning you can read
about killings and smoke stacks if you choose.
The sun is strong in February, casting out over meadows of industry.

Vanishing Points

I am traveling straight but feel a pinch in the landscape.
The purple mountains I pass eclipse the idea of volcanoes,

Fastened tightly to the earth, hard-backed and shelled.
Clouds move along as warnings. Their fog, a veil

Which covers the modesty of looking-in. I take off
My shoes and pretend to be motherless.

The pavement is still warm from the sun hours earlier.
With all that there is to say I keep a tight lip and write,

“As I lay conspiring, I have lost my view of the periphery.”
“The future relies solely on the distant arrangement of horizon.”

I prefer that we have this time to spend together, conferring
In the heat of dusk about what we’ll do when we are no longer

Stuck out here together, exchanging salutations and arrested
Reveries as the dusk turns to dark. Unconvinced that anything

Exists after this night, let’s remove a piece of our clothing
For every shiver the latent weather sobers us with.

I foolishly anticipate depth during these opaque hours.
It is with the first signs of light that I grow concerned.