Why do it? shrilled the bird,
the as-yet-unnamed, a
candidate for new coinage,
namely widewit,

And I, not hearing the spirit about which
my master, as one in opium, would go
to his end dreaming, wrapped the skeleton

My index finger nestles in your hand.
You run a penknife’s blade beneath the nail.
Discomfort is a thing we understand.

Palermo. Along the dock, boys greet our boat,
turn cartwheels for five lire coins (inferior
brass I try bending with my teeth, once),

Swallowed by blood-red vinyl of the hotel lounge,
I drain the last of a grasshopper—my first cocktail,
ever. You loosen your tie. Dad, glare at headlines

The cardinal’s cursed us with another spring
and the vines awake to exercise their rights,
nearly burying the side wall: full, gorgeous,

after Valmiki’s Ramayana (Aranya Kanda, Sarga 46)

Dressed simply but not
without elegance, holding ritual
staff and parasol

Radiating gloom, like an asteroid with designs on a star
like night’s curved shadow that swims across the Earth
like the darkness of our Sun in its deepest explosions
like the planet Budhan about to take hold of Rohini
like Saturn advancing on Chitra
like the forests and cities and far ridges of infinity
each planetary body with its moons each moon that governs

50. When your refrigerator breaks,
51. It’s good to have a job

she tapes muslin to the paneglass
sliding door with the northern exposure
over drawings to be transferred

in the afternoon we
would nap in rooms of antique
jars and lamps and needlepointed chairs