A sort of cypress reached
Halfway up the longer window;
I came to live here, all the same.

Since last September I’ve been trying to describe
Two moonstone hills,
And an ochre mountain, by candle light, behind.

Your camping lantern shone among
the cottonwoods. It was then
I should have come. Watching—

With you I want to say,
humble feet of antelopes,
what I cannot have in mind

Professor Palamedes darts down Westow Street.
Nothing explains how he avoids
Colliding with mutton, plastics, pianos.

While the rain comes pouring down,
Chekhov, in his white peaked hunting cap,
And prone beside a rick of hay, surveys

It’ll never be built, that house,
what do you say.

Those only who were bored as Ulysses
Ever came home. The remnant soldiering on
Dwelt on the pet names round their hated seas,

Its blue cathedral is trembling into the marrow
of my mouth. Its sharp houses split open

every string, then still into the trotting

Fats Domino’s parents each
wear a gold ring—each,
the woman, the man. A slice of hard moon