The grapes in the royal garden have rusted
And the concubine, waiting, sleeps by the wall.
Veins of Palestine, heavy with sap,

Tousle-haired star
Hurrying into nothing
Out of a horrid nowhere

  Her night-dreaming laugh
wound the house around her fingernail.
  Spooled it so tightly

I want her to be what I need
her to be, i.e., a mirror for my
want. There is no man but owns his own soul.

There is skill to it, how you hold your back all day, the dole
of force behind the stroke, the size of bite, where
to hit, and knowing behind each swing a thousand others wait

When I was twelve, 
My tennis coach asked me 
To pose for him after practice.

I had a dream so pure of form
it slipped intact from the dark:

Matinées are the best time
for bad movies—squad cars
spewing orange flame, the telephone

And on the receiver's live air, the insistent hello
from someone who has refused to hang up, the plea
divorced from all name and form,

Rembrandt, 63

The surprise always
something has not abandoned us,

the way, standing there, another’s
expression as you realize