When I recall days built of adamantine rock & then
those made of talc, hours hiking cactus-lined paths
or riding a subway to midtown—if I trace all the streets
I’ve Iived on, people across the hall, neighbors down
the block, perhaps ridiculous, perhaps a fright, houses
topped by widow’s walks & all the animals under a late
moonrise, prowling bears pawing the too-soon blueberry
patch, great horned owls hooting & scorning & rabbits
running to the bloodied stone wall—when I gaze upon this
assemblage, these Indonesian scorpions, pheasant feathers,
Apache Tears, oil-stained invitations to the backbiters’ ball,
if I try to find meaning when I think of all the squares of
pavement, seeds I’ve sown in the dark, the soil itself, how
it’s best to plant when crumbly, flowers that bloomed a week
or less, those lilies-of-the-valley vanishing in three days time,
& the cucumber & snap beans eaten & shared—unspeakable
prickly beauty, intractable struggle, the idea that experience
never leaves the body, that it glows in diminished light, the
storms brewing, those that passed, tree pollen puddling in a
helix of orange, & all the starts & stops, friends I have, those
I’ve lost, what I thought of others & what others thought of me—
when I try to remember, when I awake again & again, &
suddenly see my reflection, a boy walking by a store window,
a grotesque staring back, a kid playing skee-ball with walnuts
in a cutout shoebox & the oblivious ones, the ignominious ones,
the very breath—even when I’m dreaming, even then, there are
the children, lovers, flesh & bone