And if the mortally wounded warrior revives, and if
      his after-dinner pipe leads the drowsy sinner
to cast a long loving look at the cello in the corner

Each night the dairyman her husband
sinks like a hoof
in the muck of his sleeping,

Sometimes you called on those
you’d never know
to come with you in place

Sometimes when you’re not thinking
what you think most common
goes beyond everything you’ve ever known,

On the third floor
I urinate into a white bowl
hearing cars on Taber Avenue

Shall we go then, just to the corner
And no farther, not like lovers and other strangers
Who catch the same bus, and ride off together

The wall is massive, of solid stone, hard, finished;
yet it oozes The wall is smooth, new and old, durable,
and yet it is crannied, and through the mute fault drips

Lillian Russell, I think of her standing
at the rail of the Niew Amsterdam as it sails
through Caracas to get a taste of the real slums

Oh tear-filled one who, like a sky held back,
grows heavy above the landscape of her sorrow.
And when she weeps, the gentle raindrops fall,

Oh the losses into the All, Marina, the stars that are falling!
We can’t make it larger, wherever we fling ourselves, to whatever
star we may go! In the Whole, all things are already numbered.