It’s a socket—I don’t know how,
but you soon learn to count millions into that province

To no longer perform in broad daylight,
the apple's a radish for it,
the winter chill a living thing.

I wonder if they’ve really caught the scent,
which is a poor memory in our Symbolist ears

These are the same stairs, unnoticed, essential,
submerged in shadow bath; and that is the same
queen's-blood carpet, embracing the floor and chairs

Take that hand away, the hand
washing like small warm stones along my neck

There’s a donkey standing in the doorway,

The difficulties, in passion,
are not news: the knot at the throat,
the lipstick that smears, the skirt

So the hip rises, oh so slightly, in its golden socket
and music continues despite the dawn

The lion threw his head back and sang two notes like a veery

Too late. The phone had stopped
ringing, but already the narrow bottle stood
on the table, the water in it reflecting
the rug on the floor as orange. Thinking

No scenery in the scenery
Attraction of fact
Puts construction on things

exhaustion follows hard labor
also profligacy

strong wind breaks even the mightiest bow
and lots of us twigs on the way

even the most difficult path
is a beginning

every lie’s a kind of truth

truth is never sincere