but which verbs do you employ when it’s clear that you are trying 
to side-eye murder your mother, when you are the chilling moral
of every blazing honor thy Sunday sermon, when you are nothing 

Of all cities, Paris
is now the coldest.

What good are the two

Stone lips to the unspoken cave;
Fingering the nervous strings, alone,
I crossed that grey sill, raised my head

It could happen again. It will.
But this time the geography will be more final,
more certain of the rain and its echo

Up the reputable walks of old established trees
They stalk, children of the nouveaux riches; chimes
Of the tall Clock Tower drench their heads in blessing

At White River Roadhouse in the Yukon
A bell rings in the late night:
A lone car on the Alaska highway

Small girls with gaudy flowers
flash down the bare walk road

her eyes and smile are elsewhere:
swelling out and sailing to the future

the curvd lines toe-drawn, round cornerd squares
bulge out doubles from its single pillar line, like,
Venus of the Stone Age.

First            Samish Bay
             then all morning, hunting oysters