It could be like one of those dreams
where you must carry water in your hands
for half a mile to put some fire out

Lacrimae of the body, for whom do you weep?
What are your griefs, fears? Do you have a favorite
someplace whom violent motion makes you remember?

Little excavators, postage stamps
of living stone, you seek to save me
from the encroaching dust—scratch it away,

What keeps it going? What does the body
enjoy? At the end it can hardly hear much,
taste much, see much, smell much and a lot

It was probably Persian and certainly blue—
the bowl with patterned birds on the coffee table.
With a twist of the vacuum hose I broke it in two,

She points to the German twins etched on the handle
of the clippers. “Your moon’s in Gemini,” I murmur.
“Gemini who?” she says, pulling away

It rested on dried sea-hair matting the rocks.
Its mouth a gash of deep disapproval. It stared and stared,
A clouded celluloid look, a carved stillness

The suddenly bought land
Was stilled in its habits. Indians
Too light-fingered for events

When they were wild
When they were not yet human
When they could have been anything,

Trees, good new trees, trees that are stitched
into tinware by the sun.

Tanned arms sweep around a pin;