I was embarrassed in a garter snake’s presence.
—I’d screamed when it slithered under my hand
as I leaned to pick the first ripe blueberry.

A whole stolen afternoon before us
no hurry no haste savoring every

The hate began a few months after
the blissful wedding he     discov-

The mind of a lover is a labyrinth
of false starts and miscalculations

is visible to the sculptor
but it is invisible to me

After the D&C, she stood waiting for a taxi
In the clinic awning’s shade. It was afternoon in her
Comfortable little city, early rush hour. She could hear

In the 7-11 parking lot, white boys are terrorized
By a Lincoln stereo punching out 98-decibel jazz. The scene
Reminds them unconsciously of high-art cinema shot

Heraclitean, for instance: the world as a gaseous
Shimmer, like afterburner fumes in the oily night sky
Outside Carbondale, where lovers pass through the flux

Bending over the map on the floor
that unfolds like a rare carpet
we trace our trip with warm, stumbling fingers.

Visiting them, we slow down, straighten up,
as if we were approaching an open coffin
or rows of newborns behind the hospital glass.