As if it’s important that summer remain 
here on the river’s bank, the tree sheds 
its fainter leaves: mauve

Elsewhere, the tree-of-heaven grows—
in deserted parking lots,

How can I breathe, without air? you asked yourself.
(I’m wondering about that, too.)

As soon as he realized he was lost, that
in kicking around his new job in his head,
the new people he'd met, and how

Another feast day, and the bells are ringing.
The bells are ringing, and not more
than a handful of versts from here,

when Kevin
came home—
I called him

I think of the old pipes,
how everything white
in my house is rust-stained

One is fine. None’s sublime.

against the constellation
of lilies

It started with what and went from there.