I have kept strict account

Of that which eats tables and spills its socks into the delicious sky

Because it amounts to a hold on light

The swans of Mars are spinsters with mustaches like matchsticks

Usually the birds swallow dusk from the crowded knees of the heavens

But not tonight

Take a deep breath and put that under your pillow

An empty desk, a toothless wind, gum in the hair.
The fervent stride of rocks crawling up onto the beach,
A small bird
Shares mass with the moon.

I tell you this by means of constellation,
You see, and you do not see, that’s the
Smell of it, the fire from a star in a spring tree.

And such are we that
With the importunity
Of joy.

The fullest dresser of commonest flowers,
The comb and the banter of the barber and the sea,
The itchy nose of calling roads.

And who are you to pause
Between vowel and consonant?

I gather the twigs and the legs
Of time.

I gather the sunlight reduced
To its particles.

The principal footsteps radical
With life.

I make a nest.
I buy a hang glider.

I bring home pulsars.
I borrow a sweater.

An ingenious ladder of stars
For an alphabet.

The odds are against me
This rainy walking spring afternoon.