The paramount, the high water
mark. Cornices and crow’s nests, a ruling
in the belfry. With finials

We are separate and will separate more
our flock beds and bolsters, our porringers
and pot hooks, brought into homes wrought

In the Next Life in an absinthe slip
Of ribbons, water-silk coat, glass seeds
Like water at the throat, I’ll be adored

A California of snow and the surprise
Of illness. I throned myself in the white
Noise of its silence and watched as the world

I am not happy, but I’m well: enough
to suppose an unmedicated mind
a clean one. Not washed—like those elective

By year’s end, some couples used book lights,
or even night-lights, so as not to make love
in total dark. What some told, others took in

The underboat is upside down, blurred, like a reflection.

The reflection of a bridge that isn’t there.

to be the water that rocks
the boat to dreams
that tell the poor

Let’s suspend for the moment
strictly human concerns, remove
ourselves from those contexts

         The pilfering started this spring,
   a few lengths whittled to a point,
white with sun, light as balsa,