Stands white and alone
a question mark
at the end of summer

The beautiful gray dog
loping across the lawn
all afternoon for the sheer

I slam Earth again and again,
                and again and again. Not as

Paula did it so others in the office—
who lunch at The Olive Garden together,
don’t include her—won’t think she is

When we said logic was transcendental,
we felt other words we might have said
find form the way shadows find form, with dependence

It was a human place. On either side
young women and young men held manmade things
contrived for widening their lives. Some held,
by way of opened books, a separate and singular repose
so much less tense than the precision of any open flower.
There were no flowers; every torso was arranged
to complement the object of its thought. It was understood

To distance oneself
   from the easel, the table, the example
      set by others long since dead

“Ran afoul my nature to spend some time
in prison. To think
                                        on what I’d done:

Who’s there?
Who is it that can inform me?
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Do you have a favorite time of day? Favorite weather?
Tell me about your writing process.
Is that so? I would never have guessed.