A Rain for Anne

yesterday you slept the cold out because of the grease in
the pan the wrinkle that the combing water could not wash

you want to touch the word
that describes you
the wallpaper to wrap the stigma
of not-being-you

Gospels of Gabions

She’d have told him,
it was his heart,
beating too loud.
Crashing against his ribs,
like the waves, trembling
in rhythm with the Rusalka.
Against a day
that was chased and butchered,
on splintered knees,

The Winter of Things

1
Death arrived astride various comets. Clocks cried out & cows & hens, too, what may
have accounted for the mass disappearance of light. A woman with the featureless face
of a mannequin crossed a shabby side street in Zurich. The clouds directly overhead