& the moon and all stars
you can name
are fantastic!

Everything’s a couple sizes bigger: a sky
Cutting deep into the streets, hydrants
As hefty as the heads of oxen, the country’s flag

Outside the funeral of the politician who died young
I waited for you. Rolled in my hand like a baton

were tissues from the mourners inside

Perpetual peace. Perpetual light.
From a distance it all seems graffiti.
Gold on gold. Iridescent, torqued phosphors.

When, thanks to the virtues of wine,
I let go of solid memory and a certain pleasure
seems almost real to me

Isn’t it amazing that one evening
sliding the bread into its paper sack
I start all over with the same old speech,

Oh really, she’s with somebody?
So she’s with somebody.
Is she really with somebody?

But you, are you Christians?
So be it, you are Christians.
At night one could be.

In the seething almost Indian heat
of an exaggerated July in the city
the remaining inhabitants cautiously

To look at beauty and never make it yours.
If it weren’t this way you’d look at yourself
that is you’d have nothing more to look at,