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The Owner of the Night
interrogates whoever walks
this shadow-lane, this hour
not reserved for you: who
are you to enter it?
Orion’s head over heels
above the road, jewel-belt
flinting starlight
to fuel two eyes looking
down from the air:
beacons in reverse,
since light pours in
toward her appetite
until she wings her noiseless outline
between our rooftop and the stars,
over this door and all the doors
hidden in the grass:
dreaming voles,
firefly province,
wasps in the palace
they’ve hollowed under the hill.
2017
The Embrace
You weren’t well or really ill yet either;
just a little tired, your handsomeness
tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought
to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace.
1998
Broadway
Under Grand Central’s tattered vault
—maybe half a dozen electric stars still lit—
one saxophone blew, and a sheer black scrim
billowed over some minor constellation
under repair. Then, on Broadway, red wings
in a storefront tableau, lustrous, the live macaws
preening, beaks opening and closing
like those animated knives that unfold all night
in jewelers’ windows.1993