from Paradise

​

​

My sense of a city: multiple

motions viewed from a

balcony. Someone calls out

to a friend up the street

where I walk aimlessly,

nothing on my mind. A car

makes a turn, then

accelerates up the next block.

Now we would be late,

it seemed, though there was

no time stated as appropriate

for arrival. Functional and

beautiful, the body, an

efficiency of despair. Motion

in all directions at all

times. The inside of

the organ is original.

 

​

​

​

​

​

The calm descending with

dusk, an unbalanced

equation. The sweep of

incoming rain is just part

of weather, parting my wish

to continue. In all of Calvino’s

novels I remember

only the garden where

Kublai Khan and Marco

Polo sat and conversed into

the evening. The swell and

crest of each approaching car.

She crumpled sprigs of rosemary

between her fingers as she

walked. At once strategic

and coming undone for the day.

Nobody could hold as still

as the ever-moving ocean.

Buried in air. What did you

say about where lightning

never strikes.