It was red, which pleased him. Small
and hard, it fit in his palm

Nights in the castle we dream of hounds
we once ran, all those unused names.

Better give me something to smoke
If I'm going to love you, better

Take what once was so hard to give up

No closer now to knowing it, that rock world,
years past the storybook age. Desolation’s lode,

Mother, I love you. But with the dead
we drink differently, holding the cup
in the left hand, pouring the wine this way

We let it keep itself
since it refuses to belong to us. We are

Now I have been asleep a long time.
I am grown opal, unbreakable: a white blade

Now, in this blue room, we will give ourself
up, let the long siege go, like a fist

The lovers lie in trouble in the park.
The cold fall draws the leaves to earth around them.
Good angels of these lovers, come, surround them,

They said, my saints, my slogan-sayers sang,
Be good, my child, in spite of all alarm.
They stood, my fathers, tall in a row and said,