Perhaps the earth is floating,
I do not know.
Perhaps the stars are little paper cutups

From the sea came a hand,
ignorant as a penny,
troubled with the salt of its mother,

Once again I’m caught assuming
human privilege, as if only our parts merit names.
We are mere givers of names.

The first word I loved was crepusculo.
How long it took, one u mimicking the other,
volleyed in the syllables’ canyon.

It is hard to explain the light here,
earnest and aerobic light,
not the complacent kind.

Naomi said, Go home girls, I'm cursed,

and we clutched, cried No! No!
the proper length of time. Then

have never known starvation nor plenitude
and unless the order of the world 
changes, I won’t. 

Where were you, nymphs,
when I was learning to apply
the proper plaster of Paris and papier-mâché

Let the glass we smash be doubt,
the wine free will,
the bouquet, a mosaic of mercies.

At my wedding, my father, ten years dead,
practices what Isaac Babel called
              the “genre of silence”—that is,