What could be worse 
than its body 
inching out of the dark stuff

The fox
is so quiet—
he moves like a red rain—

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river? 
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air—
an armful of white blossoms,

The Cubans are vaccinating anything
live they can find and burning the rest.
My childhood pours gasoline over the toppled cows and pigs,

Out of love we fall ten times a day,
out of the marrow, out of luck,
out back into distractions and joys we rip off from prey,

Right on schedule, one century behind 
The little bird on William Wordsworth’s cuckoo clock 
Emerged from Time Itself, a home, to cuckoo. 

the Sea—turn yr Back on 
the Sea, go inland, to 
Dogtown: the Harbor 

The Island, the River, the shore,

the Stage Heads, the land, itself,

isolated, encased on three sides by

The faces of four beautiful women
who sit in chairs, in the living room,
         reading parts of newspapers,

Astride 
the Cabot 
fault,