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I am inside someone who hates me. I look out from his eyes. Smell what fouled tunes come in to his breath. Love his wretched women. Slits in the metal, for sun. Where my eyes sit turning, at the cool air the glance of light, or hard flesh rubbed against me, a woman, a man, without shadow, or voice, or meaning. This is the enclosure (flesh, where innocence is a weapon. An abstraction. Touch. (Not mine. Or yours, if you are the soul I had and abandoned when I was blind and had my enemies carry me as a dead man (if he is beautiful, or pitied. It can be pain. (As now, as all his flesh hurts me.) It can be that. Or pain. As when she ran from me into that forest. Or pain, the mind silver spiraled whirled against the sun, higher than even old men thought God would be. Or pain. And the other. The yes. (Inside his books, his fingers. They are withered yellow flowers and were never beautiful.) The yes. You will, lost soul, say ‘beauty.’ Beauty, practiced, as the tree. The slow river. A white sun in its wet sentences. Or, the cold men in their gale. Ecstasy. Flesh or soul. The yes. (Their robes blown. Their bowls empty. They chant at my heels, not at yours.) Flesh or soul, as corrupt. Where the answer moves too quickly. Where the God is a self, after all.) Cold air blown through narrow blind eyes. Flesh, white hot metal. Glows as the day with its sun. It is a human love, I live inside. A bony skeleton you recognize as words or simple feeling. But it has no feeling. As the metal, is hot, it is not, given to love. It burns the thing inside it. And that thing screams.

At supper he whispers something in your ear, the Judas boy, who wants you. We go to the garden where it’s cool and wait. From my place against the tree I see you through the window, watch as you walk from door to desk, reach into your pocket, pull out your wallet, empty it and leave it by the lamp, pick up a pen, lean over to write, then don’t, take something heavy from the drawer, put it back then sweep the money into a paper bag. You walk from desk to door and out, your hand reaching back to put out the light. On the security film you leave the building alone, holding the heavy bag. Off camera you walk towards the Charles, leave your saddle shoes under the pedestrian bridge. We wait in the garden. And wait. We don’t know yet whom you meet or why. We don’t know yet that the river has claimed you.

"Yesterday the bird of night did sit, Even at noon-day, upon the marketplace, Hooting and shrieking." —William Shakespeare 1. Imagine waking to a scene of snow so new not even memories of other snow can mar its silken surface. What other innocence is quite like this, and who can blame me for refusing to violate such whiteness with the booted cruelty of tracks? 2. Though I cannot leave this house, I have memorized the view from every window— 23 framed landscapes, containing each nuance of weather and light. And I know the measure of every room, not as a prisoner pacing a cell but as the embryo knows the walls of the womb, free to swim as its body tells it, to nudge the softly fleshed walls, dreading only the moment of contraction when it will be forced into the gaudy world. 3. Sometimes I travel as far as the last stone of the path, but every step, as in the children's story, pricks that tender place on the bottom of the foot, and like an ebbing tide with all the obsession of the moon behind it, I am dragged back. 4. I have noticed in windy fall how leaves are torn from the trees, each leaf waving goodbye to the oak or the poplar that housed it; how the moon, pinned to the very center of the window, is like a moth wanting only to break in. What I mean is this house follows all the laws of lintel and ridgepole, obeys the commandments of broom and of needle, custom and grace. It is not fear that holds me here but passion and the uncrossable moat of moonlight outside the bolted doors.

Rome Domitius gives her iron – a ring Agrippina fingers it under her robes while her hair is woven with flowers gold placed on her neck and wrists She thinks of the man    older than her father ever was At the ceremony a pregnant sow is brought forward dark and wreathed in leaves   wine and crumbs from holy cake are dusted on its brow For the goddess Ceres    for Terra Mater for this marriage   A man raises his ax blunt-side down   strikes the sow slices the stunned animal’s throat   opens her belly    The priest pushes fetal piglets aside handles the entrails close to his eyes looking for flaws    Once signaled another man places the insides on an altar for burning Domitius watches Agrippina while the men butcher the pig    char the guts    She does not look away The priest steps into the blood   face covered   prays in whispers   a flute drowning out any ominous sounds

for Lurline McGregor Ah, ah cries the crow arching toward the heavy sky over the marina. Lands on the crown of the palm tree. Ah, ah slaps the urgent cove of ocean swimming through the slips. We carry canoes to the edge of the salt. Ah, ah groans the crew with the weight, the winds cutting skin. We claim our seats. Pelicans perch in the draft for fish. Ah, ah beats our lungs and we are racing into the waves. Though there are worlds below us and above us, we are straight ahead. Ah, ah tattoos the engines of your plane against the sky—away from these waters. Each paddle stroke follows the curve from reach to loss. Ah, ah calls the sun from a fishing boat with a pale, yellow sail. We fly by on our return, over the net of eternity thrown out for stars. Ah, ah scrapes the hull of my soul. Ah, ah.

Ah Margarida, If I gave you my life, What would you do with it? I’d take my earrings out of hock, Marry a blind man, And live on a tree-lined block. But Margarida, If I gave you my life, What would your mother say? (Her mother knows me inside out.) She’d say you’re a fool, Without a doubt. And Margarida, If I gave you my life Literally, by dying? I’d go to your funeral, firmly believing You’d gone mad To try to love by not living. But Margarida, If this giving of my life to you Were merely poetry? In that case, forget it, The deal’s off, Because I don’t sell on credit. Dictated by the Naval Engineer Sr. Álvaro de Campos in a state of alcoholic unconsciousness.

Ah, silly Pug, wert thou so sore afraid? Mourn not, my Wat, nor be thou so dismayed. It passeth fickle Fortune’s power and skill To force my heart to think thee any ill. No Fortune base, thou sayest, shall alter thee? And may so blind a witch so conquer me? No, no, my Pug, though Fortune were not blind, Assure thyself she could not rule my mind. Fortune, I know, sometimes doth conquer kings, And rules and reigns on earth and earthly things, But never think Fortune can bear the sway If virtue watch, and will her not obey. Ne chose I thee by fickle Fortune’s rede, Ne she shall force me alter with such speed But if to try this mistress’ jest with thee. Pull up thy heart, suppress thy brackish tears, Torment thee not, but put away thy fears. Dead to all joys and living unto woe, Slain quite by her that ne’er gave wise men blow, Revive again and live without all dread, The less afraid, the better thou shalt speed.

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun: Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the travellers journey is done. Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

Ah the delight of dawn! Over the grassy lawn the spark of silk, of silk spat out by some small spider to be the breeze's pawn. A distant siren whines from the freeway. Sun shines! What a Sunday, what peace! An old man's tidy peace, his favorite hour of all. The ants march on in rows. They're off to do who knows what harm to the ripe pears ... Such sun now on the wall! The lizards heed its call.

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun Restored my earth to joy Have you departed, every one, And left a desert sky? All through the night, your glorious eyes Were gazing down in mine, And with a full heart's thankful sighs I blessed that watch divine! I was at peace, and drank your beams As they were life to me And revelled in my changeful dreams Like petrel on the sea. Thought followed thought—star followed star Through boundless regions on, While one sweet influence, near and far, Thrilled through and proved us one. Why did the morning rise to break So great, so pure a spell, And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek Where your cool radiance fell? Blood-red he rose, and arrow-straight, His fierce beams struck my brow; The soul of Nature sprang elate, But mine sank sad and low! My lids closed down—yet through their veil I saw him blazing still; And bathe in gold the misty dale, And flash upon the hill. I turned me to the pillow then To call back Night, and see Your worlds of solemn light, again Throb with my heart and me! It would not do—the pillow glowed And glowed both roof and floor, And birds sang loudly in the wood, And fresh winds shook the door. The curtains waved, the wakened flies Were murmuring round my room, Imprisoned there, till I should rise And give them leave to roam. O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night; O Night and Stars return! And hide me from the hostile light That does not warm, but burn— That drains the blood of suffering men; Drinks tears, instead of dew: Let me sleep through his blinding reign, And only wake with you!