The sky flashes past us while we sleep,
deep in our beds, drowning,

cello-shaped in our linen sheets,

In every uprising there's an instant
when street corners look like movie sets and
the protesters feel self-conscious, like
extras in Ben-Hur. Just now

Already, the moon. What wouldn’t come with such
A moon? Invisible stars foretell
The precious night. What wouldn’t come, as bees

Her heart fails her and the body holding it
lies on its side, the lungs taking on fluid
so it will be, we are told, like drowning
we can’t stop and each week’s watch is a hot

Fifty Hans Holbein heads
From the Queen's collection:
Wyatt and Surrey so real

Not the wrist of the sunset
which sinks every night
below the electrical wires—

The photographer is blind to what he sees—
He hits the shutter: indifferent film will hold the scene together.

Clarence was a chosen person that they got somewhere
To be lower than a cook, but higher than a dishboy.

How quickly How thick Midlife pools.

After the rabbits and doves 
and the sawed-in-two lady, 
slowly unscrew your arms