Their dream decelerates our spinning planet
one millimeter-per-second per century
until they have matched velocity with us

     I know that I should occupy my mind
and my desires only with earthly things;

on Spanish Rice. Like strange-eyed minks we took
the town, with bright, unearthly stares and offering
nothing. We were eager for suspicion. Ginger even

The flower pod, green-white, hand sized,
bloomed at night. As the dead increased,
the world of objects seemed more dense,

The sun was touching the wet black shoulders of olives
in a chipped dish descended from another century

Watching a rerun of the movie favorite
Where a dejected naval would-be hero
Hangs himself in a unit of the aquamarine

                                                                                pigs,
and this one pig wallowed in his slough
as the others chewed grass and made pig

The day I met Perry Como
General Mac Arthur had a parade.
I'd been given the afternoon off

Rounding the bend again, bitten mountain,
arid orange clusters are the same.
Past the cemetery, Julia and I claw

I think I know what he would say
about the dream I had last night
in which my nose was lopped off in a sword fight,