This afternoon I met my woe,
   a formless sound.
I couldn't figure out her sex.

The Wish Department

Today I sight-read the last 
Schubert sonata: he wanders between keys: evasive

The song of the neighborhood children.
Seeming like something that hasn’t really started yet

Two gallons of apple cider.
A jar of pungent, pasty Yankee mustard.
“Two dollars please.” Boys on bikes

Up-and-down shafts of light brick
Lift occupants up into prisms or roofs
Of green copper, and then embark on the sky.

We have them, and live and think about them,
But then, what are they? Some seem like
Bigger deals than the rest, like those of big enchiladas
Or the CEOs of banks too big to fail, but why? Some seem
Meaningful for their commitments and accomplishments,
As no doubt they are, though most are unexceptional
And ordinary, and just fine for that. They’re all equal

An intensity that overwhelms the things I wanted to say to
      you

There seems to be, about certain lives,
A vague, violent frame, an imperceptible
Halo of uncertainty, diffidence and taste

Later we began to learn to live
At the mouth of this well of the pure desire
For an end of wanting, the descent into the sun.

Afterwards. The words meander through the mirror
But I don’t want them now, I don’t want these
      abbreviations.