So that all day he’s stared the mountain down
its myth of windowsill, followed by, live, sight
of an oak shaking as a fever into leaf, alone

Tired of the tally of give and take,
until (worth it at last) I found your store
past the nickle and diming phases of dance.

Yet I knew something of how a hero’s wife lived,
      the marble throne of patience at her back.

his wrists throbbing under tight-bound cords,
the slender joints reddening, each of us hoping
to catch his other-blooded kind of time.

It’s slippery, the little by little you’re left with.
thread of a peacock in profile
glimpsed on a chimney,