All summer, I watched them
make their ghostly caduceus through water—

Seated towards the rear, facing backwards, smoking
in the cool day, he briskly turned his head

toward the stranger, who jumped onto the moving
streetcar, one hand holding her skirt up and

Those were the polio years. The war
Prospered. In Warm Springs Georgia
Strong-armed Sister Kenny

Because there are things we don’t understand, we’re shaking
our heads no. But still there are acupuncture needles,
mysterious as Excalibur, in a numb chest,

There are so many domains. And Julie doesn’t know it
yet, but she’s traveling through time at a ferocious rate. 

Mouse-ear, quack grass, shepherdspurse, are beautiful
but weeds. Their greedy merits need another kind
of seeing than we normally bring. There is no sputtering

Judith, I’ve seen the CPA. She showed me two
indomitable columns, numbers rising like the legs
of a statue god. 

A millipede-thing the size of a Brahma bull is devouring
palm fronds that are longer than stretch limos.
He watches the multiplied sun along its segmented armor; then,

That there’s a fun in funeral 
is goofus etymology, but a sensible reminder 
of the secret life in everything . . . how inside dear

In order to describe the appropriate action or conduct for any eventuality, we must first codify all eventualities. This is not so much forecasting the future, as it is prescribing all extrapolations of human capabilities; it is thus a concern with, not time, but exigencies extant in inner resources.