When I Look at Pictures

             or better
when the training dedicated
            to what lines my eyes cast
braids me to that skein
            then I know I’m a thing
that can take itself away

            maybe etched with the man
on a horse leaping
            into the lithographed
German windmill’s open bay

            refined, involutely resolved
to curving inward
            while touching the outside,
screaming isn’t looking

            like when my mother died
of being a woman,
            poor and eventually
American, the nerve I had
            to fold time
in my mouth as if to call
            back an escape line
from a life

            and who would think
to hide in a windmill
            and the horse
amenable?

            I really was
looking at that print
            thinking without rancor
of what fraction of hateable men
            I’ve known
and been
            who work so hard
at fleeing into private chambers
            only to find
some uninvited thought of me

            eyes closed, whispering
exactly there, spectral
            and unwanted as I am,
It’s just easier for me
            if you’re not around