On the Ground (audio only)
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The song itself had hinges. The clasp on the eighteenth-century Bible
had hinges, which creaked; when you released the catch,
the book would sigh and expand.
The song was of two wholes joined by hinges,
and I was worried about the joining, the spaces in between
the joints, the weight of each side straining them.
2001
This hour, while a child sleeps, before he wakes
and those arcadian hours we make together—
is it a continued arch, vaulted, open at both ends, is it
a bending?—recommence. Yes, a bending.
Light before you’d call it light bluing the sky.
The old city below, a fidget toy’s
string of buildings; doves calling and answering
from ledges in the cavities; a low
branching into divisions of memory;
a hot afternoon’s lunch on the grounds
of the museum, children at play in
tethered circles; traffic and voices from the avenues
2017