Portrait

You have to walk so close to the mirror
Before your breath clouds the image
You need to get a running start
You need to get a running start
To break through the refrain into repetition
As exile's continuous form forms the same
Words twice thrush thrush
Drab bird unseen in the dark dark's underbrush
Sung from the yeasty mouth

*

From within the cloud the voice sings
The voice is a singing cloud
You have to walk so close to breath 
Before you find the mirror
And then beginning looks just like
Beginning looks just like
What doesn't know how to complete itself
Otherwise 
What is there in saying house bridge fountain

*

bridge fountain gate jug 
jug fruit-tree window there I said them 
All and every all's this same
Cloud's faulty tower is this same 
Cloud's broken column trying to make a point
About breath by mentioning breath
I stand so close to the surface of the thing
I am dumb because I make myself dumb
And then the apples go mute

*

Jug jug
Make no noise
Who will find you in the middle of your breath
And keep whole all you want broken
Someone becomes
Someone again it must be done
Mouth scaring bird from its ever more hidden nest
A surface seems to know something about
Depth depth cannot know about itself

*

Right toward the mirror
Watch it fly as sometimes it does fly
Breath and every cloud
The sky has gotten a running start
It's why the apples ripen even though they hurt
The sky's running start
Let panic return and stand very still
You have to stand very still
Before what is wounded turns around and nears

*

A note plays in the dark
Plays all by itself in the dark just a note
Just a note called escape
What I'm telling you is what I cannot say
Otherwise this
Intimate breath is just another maze
The sun disappears
Inside the apple I mean there is a mirror
In a cloud and right there is your answer