Everything I love is young. I love you, because you are
young. Satire, Epistle, the glistening inner wing of a redwing
blackbird’s wing, you too are young.
   I am dying young. Horace, young lover of old words,
young new faces, I love you best.

The movement of my body when I wake,
Hinge of my arm, the shift of hand and throat,
Reminds me there was something for your sake

Wrapped like a sprained ankle from head to toe,
                                                                                 locked in glass
In an inconceivable country.

In the unshaded hill
where you kill
every day I have climbed

light that shines not
on, but from the
earth—

  Jane Lee told me that in Maine she met a little boy who
insisted that in his family they had green blood in their veins.

I can summon them
(sometimes I can)

Well, sainthood’s a bottomless pity,
                                                                   as some wag once said, so
Better forget about that.

The more you say, the more mistakes you’ll make,
                                                                                                          so keep it simple.
No one arrives without leaving soon.