Deirdre was almost ebony. She washed your boxers
and folded them neatly inside your backpack.
When I came home from the Cape, you'd painted our bedroom

Hopper never painted this, but here
on a snaky path his vision lingers:

Three white tombs, robots with glassed-in faces

Imagine starting with that option
(a deistic turn of faith, or generosity?)
each lens minutely tinted a petition-

Voice
from the grain

of the forest bought

Later, we will notice a vast communication
between separate selves. We will learn
in the colors of our lover's body

The barn is warm, come inside, lie down,
sleep. Here, no sheep ever fails

If you cannot make a living from your art,
double the art, double any part

(but not the whole)

Hunkered, totally

spaced, in the half-open door of the fridge
with my trifocals fogging, scanning the five

The Lord wants me to go to Florida.
I shall cross the border with the mercury thieves,
as foretold in the faxes and prophecies,

Each swallow scalds his throat, the lesions
on his larynx burn. There's nothing
to eat or drink but air. Skin