Like the Thief
I’ve learned not to mind the distance
to wake in a roomy bed
morning forging colors
outside my streaked windows
didactic and hectoring—
I don’t like poems like that.
I’ve learned not to spoil the hours
reading while glaciers calve
refusing a syntax
of formal completeness
as poets have shown us
all grand things are cold.
I’ve learned not to count the time
without you in it, valueless
specie to hoard for things
more alluring. Compliant with
night, I assess like the thief
and only love what disappears.
Saudade
Mine should be the house
to bring you to splendor
but there is no house here
a hall of empty hooks
I should be pleased
to show you its surface
make winter’s precession
light up with bright things
The carillon’s axle
should bring you your hours
like children made perfect
through pills as they sleep
To signal your absence
each color should vanish.
To foreground the silence
I stopped the quartet