Or sometimes watched drifting with the leaves,
some last confetti of yellow or brown. Or it existed

the way the juncos huddled beneath the thistle
feeder in winter, in the way the clouds spilled water

in May to soak the ground. Once we found it
in the attic in a steamer trunk, and another time

we closed it in a suitcase and drove it across
the countryside to Ohio. And often we imagined that

the years were a locked door against which
we kept knocking to be admitted. And on the dresser

of the new house, I spilled the change of the marriage
into a heap, and later we sat on the back porch and watched

the nuptial clouds on their conveyor belts. And we slept
at night with the breaths of the marriage around us.

and you used to be The Richard Bey Show 
and my sister’s spaghetti. Under a friar plum tree, 
a simplified reading of “The Argonautica.”
You kept me full and entertained. I was that kind 
of round child. Gorging on what was left over. 
I didn’t want a real burden, my own ship or story. 
I didn’t want to go on ahead. I didn’t want to 
have to reverse into you. Into your apparatus. 
I never wanted nostalgia. We used to know each other,
remember? Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid. 
Not. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry. Humid. Dry.
Why did we have to pry open our patch of dirt? 
Why couldn’t you always be acid wash
or those I CAN’T DRIVE 55 posters at the swap meet 
or sunglasses. I never wanted to lay questions around 
you. What if he takes another this year? What if 
he’s difficult to talk my way out of? What if he eats me 
only half-alive? What if all he is in his beach bum
orange is ghosts clothespinned to the laundry line?

         Gaily bedight,
         A gallant knight,
     In sunshine and in shadow,
         Had journeyed long,
         Singing a song,
     In search of Eldorado.

         But he grew old—
         This knight so bold—
     And o’er his heart a shadow
         Fell, as he found
         No spot of ground
     That looked like Eldorado.

         And, as his strength
         Failed him at length,
     He met a pilgrim shadow—
         ‘Shadow,’ said he,
         ‘Where can it be—
     This land of Eldorado?’ 

         ‘Over the Mountains
         Of the Moon,
     Down the Valley of the Shadow,
         Ride, boldly ride,’ 
         The shade replied,—
     ‘If you seek for Eldorado!’