An electric clap, and the sky shuts

down. And pours. My desires, like yours,

are I expect rather simple. Orality, say.

The windows are sheeted, the streets

glazed with water. I do not know

my desires by sight or name, suspect

licking and swallowing and tasting

are involved. We all want
 
to be loved — they say. Everything

is there for the eating, under the clouds

***

Can you feel the muscle hardening?

Is it there? Is it tasty, or visually

satisfying, or moist? Where does it go

afterwards? When someone shuts off

the lights. Clap clap. If this has

a history, it's news to me, but there

are more things I don't know than

things I do. They preened themselves,

evidently, on their visual literacy. Does

it move independently of the joint?

***

Pretty ballerinas at the barre. At

the bar. I stretched, pirouetted,

and forced my feet into numbered

positions for about three weeks,

then pulled a muscle. Like facets

of a crystal. They twirl and dip

and swoon. Alone, the slim body

curves as with pain, or hunger,

or aspiration. Reach for the stars.

Where did I put my shoes?

***

A gravid female apteryx, in x-

ray: the four-pound body swollen

with a gross one-pound egg. What

system would account for thirteen

separate sorts of finch, thirteen

acts of special creation? Long dappled

grass, a highway paved with

linnets' wings. Discipline. You learn

to channel those nasty drives.

A word for it, Hegelian almost.

***

The Real Thing. Das Es. Look, but don't

touch. Don't see. One language alone,

he tells, won't do, but what's said

isn't worth the hearing. Some god

bends his graceful, rib-rounded

torso to touch some nymph. Instant

rerun. She has an idea for the muse,

sharper than she ought to be, more

determined by far than me. Father

Helios, all a-wobble.

***

Very like a whale. Or a wombat.

(Begin again.) The beautiful young

people once dazzled with their earnest

resolve. Today the coastal metropoles

crumble as ironic sea levels centimeter

upward. How much of that debt

is mine, how much yours? And who

do we pay it to? Era, earful, any time

of day. Others' letters delivered, speed

on to whatever shadowed box.

***

A touch on the audio screen and one

harsh word brings the whole evening

crashing down. I've been on edge,

you've been on edge, she's been

on edge — conjugation of inevitable

verb. The mystery of the lost meter,

to be rendered moot when the sea

percolates up through the limestone

and erases all our mistakes. Both

entrances blocked. Drive trains.

***

The natural posture is upright. Natural

position. Problem of the "natural." I toss

and turn, every night, to get you closer.

We run, where in sunlight or rain,

to stand still. This damned—another—

book. Pieces, bite. Shards. How do

"ew" vowels evolve: my father pronounced

it "strown"? Towards the end, he

couldn't live in comfort, slept propped

up with a finger on the morphine trigger.

***

The dream of great icicles fallen, smashed

on the sidewalk. Not on her, impaling

or crushing, but she herself shattered.

The Church retreating, the license

plates "Christian." This night suspends

water, hums with stone. I see only

from machines. Signs at the foot

of Trümmelbachfälle, the fatal

dangers of drinking one's water

too cold. Ammonia through the ceiling.

***

The valley opens up below you as

you ascend. Rushes up towards the helmet-

camera'd lunatic youths, their parachutes

and mashed potatoes with ketchup.

To build a city up there, raveled together

with cables, perilous switchbacks, gravel

and chilled pure water. Obsessed

with food, one more of the seven

deadlies. I dreamed you sliding down

that hillside, turning twitching reaching.