—after “Environment for Three Overweight Parakeets”
You thought you were seeking beauty
in that plain, little box. Fixed your face
to the aperture. Inside, a chaos
of swimming through stones, doll arms cocked
—after “Environment for Three Overweight Parakeets”
You thought you were seeking beauty
in that plain, little box. Fixed your face
to the aperture. Inside, a chaos
of swimming through stones, doll arms cocked
So simple is the soul
a house finch can haunt its innermost
ever, not for an hour, not for an era, but a
different kind of forever, as in, as in,
as in the dream of an infinite lever, & a lamb
lifts up a mountain by stepping on the end
of an endless branch propped beneath
the stone—. That dream—. Of the long ago
then, a sort of once-upon-a-
time, when the pear sang out the finch’s tune
& desire began again its how-to-
see, how-to-hear, mystery burden so hard
to bear—. Then God was a word
for the perfection that no one could name—.
A new year of trees, and in the yard
the rosemary is trying to live again,
its spines broken, darkened from the frost.
I don’t know whether to water it
or leave the plant to fortune.
Sometimes my love can drown a thing.