The winter sun says fight.
The arctic blasts say fight.
This polar world is flat

But if my belly were the whole
sky, would I wake at night to rise like this,
cumbersome as the moon?

Give it up, said the moon, and I curled
around the hunger.

I had been searching the hill for a vision.
And unabashed as if waiting he came into sight.

always another moment
drawing back

The water tower poses a challenge. Against
   the shadows of the sky are planes of light.
There seems to be no touching, but actually

Trussed in Christianity
Like some stretched fowl upon a spit,
His oil of kindness turned to bile,

Struck dumb midsong, your half-heart hard against the light,
you quail. One of two things will have transpired here:

Now that you're dead, the peacocks scrabble around our yard,
searching for your bones. They'll not find them.
Like everything about you, they have risen.

The news reached me in Paris. Shadows in Paris.
Years later (in Paris) I would recall the scene