The whole hollow globe of orange, balanced
where ashes usually fall, in the crystal
curve of the ashtray, brightened the table.

meaning a context or vision to confer with this which could be a 
book. 
meaning what I just said confers with this but a licking sound. 

Now, as you board the airplane, is there latent
in its thorax—nestled near the spine—
some wiring awry, a hose not tightened?

—Like so many fine twigs 
snapped by the rainstorm
that’s sweeping this city today,

Some waves came up overnight, though in Norderney, there was no weather.
At the commercial wharf, a thin stream of white exhaust rose vertically from the ferry.
The first service would depart soon. The puddles lay dark in the stone streets

We could almost see her
said to have risen in the bay
from sea foam and the blood of Ouranos' sliced genitals

It's not as simple as rhyming “mud” and “blood”
   as Owen did and does (“I, too, saw God through mud”)
   in his “Apologia.”

The thing you want discovers you when you’re
washing a thigh, and the phenomenon’s
a shock—a sudden flood—a clang of bronze.

for John Milton

Their theaters cackle and bray, their carriages
clutter the streets: cockades, torches, liveries
clash. Philistine hearts
jocund and sublime, they smear their deals

gold on columns and cornices. Temples fume
with burning fat. The choicest girls
parade with kohl-ringed eyes and spangled thighs.
Let the poor creep into shadows: they offend.

Even relating it, Sofia shivered with the weirdness of it.
He’d read all my stuff online, I mean all of it. And he was like, glistening with the effort
of being nice to everyone, but especially me. How he knew I’d be there I don’t know.
What I hate is that I bought it. I thought he was lonely, sure, but changed, mature. It was only
after, walking home, that Jen told me. And I yelled at her for letting me interact with that,
which I regret, but she fucked up. I don’t care if he’s sober: hate is worse. Hate is poison.
I’d been murmuring sympathetic words, my face mirroring her revulsion; now I filled my eyes
with the care I felt for her, and feel; however, what I could find to say ended before the love did,
so a small silence came, Sam squeezed her hand, our expressions softened to the resting smile,