GALLERY

Fulfilled in every granite fold
and grace, a stone gesture
leans intricately
to suggest praise
of the delicate basilica
soaring overhead, its sky-blue
marble fitted exactly
to ambition.
                       Consider:
the frescoed clouds,
the plaster garlands,
the sword unsheathed,
the air which resists completion,
the fixed ascension,
the layers of varnish,
the layers and layers of antique sleep,
the future pretending to wait,
the imminent revelation and
the child's long shadow
in the empty city.

AFTER SEURAT

The gardens are gone
dissolved in light
we've seen only in museums.

We have not been taught
how to speak or why
and can only keep secrets
by not having any.

I have looked in the garden
for you and you there
for me where the grass
longs for the river
and have walked along
the back road where the river
lies under the bridge
and have found neither
grass nor garden nor river.

The world breaks
for what we want of it
and will not be restored.

The bedrooms are gone
and the nights of wind
we wandered in
looking for each other
and passing through
and later we will look
for that passing
instead of each other.

In the parks, the people
lift above themselves
like boats upon the summer
and they drift away
in that summer.