It rises from childhood
like a humpback whale, water
streaming down the grill, 

The atmosphere surrounding you
reaches heights in which
it changes things

To begin with: I object to this line
of questioning. Custom holds that being

Port with the tossed deck, whipping
Sheep-bends between the coiled lines.
We lean. Our faith in bracing and ballast.

People walk out of themselves into
the river. The surface
is a sound you can’t hear.

Today was mixed—some flurries, some sun.
Skied into woodcut snow scenes, then home,
discussed Flaubert with neighbor, the one

Beside my bed the lamplight glows: a glass base
filled with shells containing
news of ocean. Each shell encloses what the sea

Supine on a gurney below the Acropolis tacked
to the ceiling, my right leg slowly turning
cement, I'm an accidental artifact of Pompeii

The wall is massive, of solid stone, hard, finished;
yet it oozes The wall is smooth, new and old, durable,
and yet it is crannied, and through the mute fault drips

A steep cemetery of a smile,
the last century—what a century!