Since everything I claim might be denied,
when I have the strength to forget, I forget.
And when I don’t, what an Elysium

April 2020

When I came to—crocuses were pushing up
purple in my garden, return of the cooing dove—

and when I got out at Penn Station there were no faces
along the tracks—

wind blew through 32nd Street with a faint whiff of onions
and hair spray

I stand by the stove, boiling tea, and trees climb down
through the winter hills to bring me news.

Grief, do me no favors. I have grown my hair long,
as you bid me. I have learned to roll
a coin below my knuckles. I have written down now

The part
that flusters some, that flusters no one.

I followed a ribbon that trailed from a hand
and it led through the grazing of crowds upon pavement,

In the midst of winter, where moonlight carves
stillness into the shape of hills, there is
a cabin feeding smoke to the low-hanging sky,

And when you are finally caught and questioned,
it is discovered, sadly, that you know

For the sightless, shapeless hope is vision,
cast back by the long thrower like a discus,
heavy like a discus, ridged, impacted.

In this book birds are taught their flying
by that which would make them fall
were they not to fly as had been taught.