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!

Oie Cythaera
Land out of which I might never have
Limped into this day which holds me now

An eye for an eye, love
A mouth for a mouth
Next me lie, love

The old woman who sees him sleeps in that house
By his boots she knows him, his long white coat

The bright young bones growing turn like green tendrils