214.
Sometimes finish something be enough
to begin with
‘a balanced aquarium’
Antin explained when we were kids
so much I learned from him I'll never
admit
plants feed fish excrete feed plants
oxygen out of nowhere
only the sun needs helium
at the other end of its cosmos last
dream’s gentlest touch
thrill the way a bird does or morning
light
mockingbird on the bridge in rain
where herons often glide from pond to
bay
I’m gasping for breath airless in
Gaza
to see me suffer puts the leaves to
sleep.
215.
Night stuff thick
ankles of consciousness
slow drag a thickened broth
a cake of beef fat offered to birds
there are days music will not listen
means that no one hears
after a month on the sea it is hard
to be anybody else
say it with your hands the way the
night
is religion only something other
people do
glamor of the ivory corpus constantly
reminds
once there was a place where these
things mean
thank God we have to make our own.
216.
Walk over there and meet myself
departing
signs of death I cannot find my shoes
lost my heart in the Rockaways
began to think that love was made of
skin
cathedrals walk beside you when you go
I flew over the Hadramawt and Mars
looked back
the meaningless politeness of the
desert rock
the empty cup I offer to my friends
how little I’ve given, how much
proposed
littoral birds the afikomen found at
last
set me my place at the table near the
door
sometimes the sight of food makes me
despair.
