Candor is the brightest shield we'll ever know
                apart from privacy
                         —Andrew Maxwell, "Sotto Voce"

                                            Among
ourselves, the contrary, there is
no 'land' so like the world
that, in a suitable remoteness
one can't tell the difference
                       between atmosphere
and strained enchantment
Beings of imagination
                       aren't compelled, at all, they aren't,
                       that's easy, if there's any way they show
'a ranging disposition'
                       someone's really present folks, and
                       must be close, obscene, plants only rustle
                       from extraordinary bare necessity—
                       the deck, the moving painted tree,
                       even when you hit the floor it hurts
                       this other way, one sustenance in hand,
                       a moving trap of shade is a variety
                       of show-light, you?
                                                                      Among us
                       faeries can hold property inside
                       the ballet states, an entry in the field guide
                       to locusts, with at least a glow
                       that turns apart one splinter, and another,
                       from decaying trees, all home,
                       overlooked and natural, dead on
as if the life
we might set out to lead were made
available to us
in strongest attitude of opposition
to the ordinary facts
                                                                      Straining
                       like an anthem in its leather case
                       without the notes of wild birds at all
                       without an instrument, affirmative,
                       and something else as contrary as poetry
                                let's say one hundred years ago
                       but so much more