In a dim room above the freightyards, next to an old brass bed, an angel is taking off his wings. He winces a little as he eases the straps that run down into his chest: the beat of the wings is the beat of the heart.

This is what’s known
as SERIOUS BUSINESS.
That’s why the title line

I think I saw you once
In another kid’s Easter basket.
Maybe it wasn’t you or wait

You realize, even as you start this
that it won’t end up as a sonnet—
and by “sonnet” I don’t mean just a poem

Model C-24,
developed exclusively for us
by a team of expert engineers

All right. Let’s hear it
for this fine figure of a
trout on every plate.

Father, all of the fears
I’ve learned are one word: silence.
How is emptiness measured? What can

It is like drowning,
The water of the eyes spills back into the head
It coats the skull like honey

More than leaves, dust and wind
envelop the football game in the meadow.
It is an enormous, ill-defined ball of Artie tumbleweed

Eurydice’s Hairpin. Cassandra’s Curse.

There are the names of wildflowers
that come out just at night,