I want my beard
To be as long as
A road,

you must get well right
away your mistress loves

you and she needs you to

“What I am is not important, whether I live or die —
          It is the same for me, the same for you.
What we do is important. This is what I have learnt.

Beside my bed the lamplight glows: a glass base
filled with shells containing
news of ocean. Each shell encloses what the sea

Today was mixed—some flurries, some sun.
Skied into woodcut snow scenes, then home,
discussed Flaubert with neighbor, the one

I ask you to stay.
Here in my head I ask.
You don’t know I’m asking,

        Is she dead?

 Yes, she is dead.

             Did you forgive her?

Slicing the sphere in planes you map inside
The secret sections filled up with the forms
That gave us mind, free-hand asymmetries

Dawn at that hour
Brought on her kindly light for ill mankind,
Arousing men to labor and distress.

At the end of a long journey, I can still see that corridor, that moleskin, that warm shadow crossed by breezes pure as small children sent by the sea foam