Poetry

The three fates in dark
skirts and starched shirtwaists
bend over their work,

The loss you can’t remember.
Crumbling walls, the mind’s stupor.
The haze at the horizon, the loss
indistinct, the stammered words
repeating themselves.
You can’t remember.

A sleeper
purifies a room.

The Germans have a word for it, the pleasure
in what one does best. Don’t fret the accent;

Almost always, it’s just getting dark
when you come back, when you arrive
on this street;
dark
and perhaps just beginning to rain,

On a clear day, the jealous
Are jealous of ash leaves,
Flies, all jewelry of air.

These evening hours of blank heat I feel
utterly alone, until the air ripples a bit
and I think of everyone luxuriating in its
 gift
at once, like a congregation. I live, after all,