She walks the city
as it wakes.
Under cloud committee
she walks the city.
The river's pretty
as morning breaks.
She walks the city
as it wakes.

Oyster shells of light
peer through the Y
in a bare tree.

Night has moved on
to California or somewhere
out on the ocean.

But the new day, it aches,
the grass drowns in dew.
I see my loved one

in a week, and until then
I am getting a little tired
of clouds burning like sugar.

Blue letters of rain
are waiting...
Reticent molecules,
why are they
unable to pierce
the gauzy tent
that's vaulted up there,
gray and sick?
Caught by the elbow
on the way out the door,
living in a cloud's foyer -
don't they see
my hands moving,
filled with keys?
What silver seed
are they waiting for now?
Blue letters of rain,
sleeping in a sky
dark as a bandage,
the air is so heavy,
so metallic; the whole
city is waiting
for this wet birth...

Watching a **** elm tree
on your birthday,
as it bends and whistles
to inaugurate the afternoon.
The grasses bend south,
& birds make silent shadows
up and down the street.

Restless, I stand up,
roam around the apartment:
your birthday carries the odor
of fig soap, or maybe it's plums -
I can't recall. I pick up books
of poetry, put them down,
pick them up again,
turn on the stove, make coffee,
and wave it at the naked elm
to salute you on this day of yours.

This day - so clear,
so empty: you must fill it.

Drag black stroke
all the way down
in the early hour.

Winter sun rises
late: I'm awake
in this crackling dark,

out on a walk
& starting my day
with the incandescence

of Xmas trees spied
in the windows
of strangers.

I heard it in the evening,
those sad, hopeful voices.
Astonished, I was caught
in a grace. I thought
of the strangest things:
Corso's leopard-apples
& lost watches,
flowers pressed into pages,
aluminum foil and how
once creased it's creased
forever, the scent of a pear,
the scent of hide glue,
astonished as these strange things
rioted through me
uncontrollably, as the music
moved forcefully forward,
however unfinished,
and I was stricken
with a nearly perfect moment.
Astonished, when you said
this was your funeral song.

I love you,
my dear.
I tell it true:
I love you
every day anew.
Let them all hear:
I love you,
my dear.