My cubist
face looks out
the window at a
moon wrestling
sinuous blackish
clouds that fling
welting scales of
rain in little belts.

My face enjambs
like these lines,
& I catch sight of
the cloud basin
climbing higher
& higher into
the upper champagne
of the atmosphere,
clouds the same
shade as dull teeth
in a wet mouth.

The angles of
my jaw -
cameras fail
to distill it.
Or I am so full
of wild will
that no one
notices my face
is a trompe l'oeil.
In this pale light
I'm all cheek
and brow-
another bottle
of wine and I
can smear my
own memory of it.  

The clouds
I mentioned, they
fell one by one
into the Anacostia
river, never to be
seen again.