Through leaded windowpanes the light pours down
less on the holy figures than on objects
waiting to be used that tell the story:

An evening, sad like snow in a landscape
(late Vermeer, no signature, no date
in an old man's hand). In the center

There will be spiders the size of your ears, drinks
that will make you stupid, matches you'll long
to strike; there will be mop-ups the size of Rhode Island.

The Marchioness went out at five o’clock. The sky was blue yet tinged with pink over the white spires which broke up the east horizon. The smell of the afternoon’s brief shower was still evident and small pools of clear water collected in the tilt of the gutters, leaves and tiny curling scraps of paper drifting in the miniature tides which nonetheless caught and reflected the swollen sun, giving the boulevard its jeweled expression.

for Elliot Helfer

             Do potatoes suffer?

                            Would it be new
                             with a blue pen?

                This lightweight
                            futuristic
                                slightly minimalist
                        black German
                                          fountain pen

                     The Lamy Safari

             The alphabet
                    with my name inserted
                                 black against red

Dine in style tonight
With your misery, Adele.
Put on your silver wig

Grandpa loved crawling
Under the skirts of his mother’s friends
As they sat on the porch

Like a busy street scene
Reflected in a butcher’s window:
Trimmed head of a large pig

I’m the uncrowned king of the insomniacs
Who still fights his ghosts with a sword,
A student of ceilings and closed doors

No one has seen me today 
as I too have seen 
no one 
not even myself