Death invited to break its horns
on the spread
cloth. To drop its head

January 29th

Black-white-black the flock of scaup
pushing hard against whittles of the tide.

The point of clothes was line,
a shallow fall of cotton over childish hips
or a coat ruled sharp, shoulder to hem

I walk along the length of a stone and gravel garden
and feel without looking how the fifteen stones
appear and disappear. I had not expected the space

A musician tumbles bicycle handlebars
  on a sidewalk and makes jangling music;
a gardener prunes branches, then shakes
  the Japanese maple to drop a few

As an archaeologist unearths a mask with opercular teeth
and abalone eyes, someone throws a broken fan and extension cords
into a dumpster. A point of coincidence exists in the mind

A melody played on the piano with five black keys. I heard it, walking across
packed snow and ice with microspikes under my shoes.

All night the slur of cars. Now
one closer, now up-
        voluming, & I lean

against the doorframe, listening.
        I’ve nothing to wake you for.
The earth’s hot core whorls

Like an alarm I can’t shut off, the summer.
Like air raid sirens stuck on
the world is burning, the world is burning
& I can’t stop it. Can’t stop ash from the reddening

sky falling dry onto grass, onto clover
lit purple at their tips. Mouth level.
My cheek muscles the ground. I can’t hear

anything here. I can’t hear
them but I know, around me,
forests are not quiet as they burn.

this sharpness of pines, this gravel loose
beneath us, faltering with each rustle, each step, with what we’re not
saying to each other—Now your flashlight’s beam angles