xxxxxiii.

Every man is not a world, but a country

bordered and limned in its own way

and if borders are artificial, one should attend

to the piece of nature that posits

the construction of walls, and what waits

for brick to rise in order to grow

In the tariffs, and the agreements

in the negotiations into the night

we come to map the shape of the word

in transfers—I offload most of my deeds

and my misdeeds into the informal sector, but

you will know my love for you

by the commerce between us

--when you find goods of foreign origin

unexpectedly within your borders

a hint of the desert, and the brush of the sea

what I hear when the bushes rattle

and the shape of cliffs rising

above the houses and below the beltway

I am positioned to become

a small trading power, and what I carry

must be of high-value to justify the journey

across the wasteland, but

find the traces of my affection

among the bulk of the marketplace

in some shadowed stall
by the alley, the lanterns will
confuse you
my teeth, reflect the corner of
a false constellation.

xxxxxii.

As things fell, at different rates

               we clattered down slantwise

and scattered,

                a quiet trickle of refugees

                rolling into the corners

it was never announced

                   and never expected,

that we rose downwards

it seems that time has parted like paper

hung on wood, 

it seems that we pass into a

different stage,

              the encampments of the well-intentioned

              and the ambitious,

lining the streets, behind stucco walls

you must carry a sturdy container with you

there is sufficient water,

             

            all of them quietly mourning

for their homes--but the canvas of
expectation, snaps against the poles
and the unmoored edges fly. 

              

xxxxxi.

I heard your name today
--no the other one
in a chord,
in static, the edge of
the air.

xxxxx.

       --and the walls are covered

in paper, and the slash-marks

of a horsehair brush,

black as ravens, stilled

in flight.

I see raven slash the sky

to ribbons

       --over the low hum

of the generator,

and bushes blooming,

gently

resting behind the leaves

black wings folded,

over his chest.

He is unfooled, you should be like him

and mask, a wicked beak

among the curved branches

and buds—

xxxxix.

If you believe the world is your oyster
you will eat oysters every night

--if you do not believe in your knife
then you will spend all night cutting your hands.

The image of--blood and salt, on the ice,
the straw and the paper covering the table--
the fingers slipping, and the hunger
--glancing through the small windows
built for a much smaller set of souls,
or the gracious expanse of glass
--looking out onto the boulevard.

It isn't different, I don't believe
if you can hear the sea echoing
or only the rush of the traffic,
not different if you were born
for lights and alleys, or ridges
and fields.

Some weep against the world
in sweat, and the blunt calluses
are the quiet song hope
embers of rage
gone still--

When the mouth runs dry,
the brush of moving cloth
is surely somebody's song
sung for somebody--every
thing that was made, was
made for love.

the last city

I dreamed a city
          of long and windy alleys
and streets engulfed by shadow
cool still, like a masoleum:
except for the vague rustle
of the offerings.
   
they found stone slabs is Turkey
on a quiet sunlit hill
          with the grass rippling
buried in bones--I think an altar
of asphalt--

I would lay all of my
cities to rest--
               by silent girders
the mirrored haze
rising to the skyline
the reflection of leaves
--in the fetid puddles

      in some unused corner
by the steps, rest
by the trashcan--

eucalyptus

the eucalyptus swings down

and the leaf-tips

nearly touch its shadow

before the wind blows them apart

together

and also, separate

--from the balcony

I see them.