The traveling dissection tent is gone.
The stakes are pulled, the mason jars are cracked
and crusted with formaldehyde. The lawn

We look at each other and are sad.
There’s a pear tree beside you,
(in fact you’re surrounded by fruit trees—

Oh! was it in woman’s nature to hear him, and not to cherish
every word? It was Glenarvon—that spirit of evil whom she
beheld; her soul trembled within, and felt its danger.

                There was a bees’ nest over the door.
My husband sprayed it then swatted
most of it down with a broom.

It was not unlike a raccoon
when I found it by the highway.

He crouches on the Eames-like throne
His backbone exposed to the sacred tapestry

The only heir, memory cannot bless any new deed
With the marks of management, transported

Struck dumb midsong, your half-heart hard against the light,
you quail. One of two things will have transpired here:

Everywhere I walk I walk into my past,
as if swimming upstream. There is a chord
of melancholy in the air.

Nights in the castle we dream of hounds
we once ran, all those unused names.