Because the painter knew that history,
when it happened, happened in Venice,
it's on the steps of the Riva

Out of the darkness, into the light,
you’ve tripped: the bulb by the back door
illuminates a fierce scrub brush on legs.

Some pets, Horace says, spend their lives
going over the same old ground: some suburb
      of love. A parking lot

To the canyon that came so close
to touching me, I was nothing.
What good was a truck gearing down

I haven’t met you yet. I’m out the door,
late for a bus, suitcase spilling open,
disgorging my life so far.

        Swept Valley

Which sounds like something the wind
        would do:        

The woman is preparing her body for sleep.
She hangs the hair forward
and it almost touches her feet.

Moon is hobbled and placed in a field.
Listens to cicadas and watches the cripple
walk to the restaurants to play his bagpipe

As long as I struggle to float above the ground
and fail, there is reason for this poetry.
On the stone back of the Ludovici throne, Venus

This New England kind of love reminds me
of the potted chrysanthemum my husband
gave me. I cared for it faithfully,