Night, an alien city, I roamed
a street with no name.
Stone steps submerged me deeper

That country, like depression, will steal
your youth and turn it into a codeword,
will take your rapture and give grief;

A fence. Chestnut trees. Bindweed. God.
A spider web, the hiding place
of first cause, and the thick grass:

In the Pare de Saint Cloud, birds sang.
Alone in that vast narcissistic forest
overlooking Paris,

The blackened river ran through the park.
Past there, the numb gardens
were hemmed by thick braids of hedges.

When I see driven nails I think of the hammer and the hand,
his mood, the weather, the time of year, what he packed
for lunch, how built up was the house,

There is skill to it, how you hold your back all day, the dole
of force behind the stroke, the size of bite, where
to hit, and knowing behind each swing a thousand others wait

Steely forehead. Steely forehead.
When the sun comes up, you’ll have it quenched.
You feed with me among the sky’s black chains.

You are my flower, my lips, my heaven.
Embrace in your glance the seven grains.
I bear them, until I collapse.

The blanket, its weight, while we were growing.
Or the eyes, which yesterday were blind,
today yours, yesterday the indivisible. The vials,