It pinks the cheeks of speech, or flushes the forehead.
It’s a spring breeze in which words play, a scorching sun
that burns them red, slate clouds that cover them in ice.

He tells of headless people with eyes on their shoulders,
dog-headed people who bark, one-legged people
who hop fast, mouthless people fed by the scent

Somebody takes a photo
of the little girl in a witch’s suit
and it stays in the corner of a mirror

Is this my blue portrait?
Are we living on a dark continent?
Is this my portrait against the darkening year?

I watched Preacher Benson plowing his back garden with a mule
to the sprung clacking of the screen door,
and it’ll sound that way when the century turns.

I can hear you in the bathroom: rinsing, splashing, steaming;
Three different kinds of sound slurred, the elements
Confounded by your actions. (Across the airshaft,

Something about the ironing board made him
leave it behind, angular in the emptied living room,

She was her own celestial city now.
The ravens and the crows in residence
were fallen angels of the picket fence.

The quicksand builders built
against the Folly of All.
They built from ancient custom.

Walking home from my powerless car
I pass through a dozen supper smells, each
more promising than anything I’ve ever cooked.