Activity

We meet in a hotel
with many quarters for the radio
surprised that we've survived as lovers
not each other's
but lovers still
with outrageous hope and habits in the craft
which embarrass us slightly
as we let them be known
the special caress the perfect inflammatory word
the starvation we …

I once believed a single line
 in a Chinese poem could change
  forever how blossoms fell
and that the moon itself climbed on
 the grief of concise weeping men
  to journey over cups of wine
I thought invasions were begun for crows
 to pick at a skeleton
  dynasti…

Out of some simple part of me
which I cannot use up
 I took a blessing for the flowers
tightening in the night
like fists of jealous love
 like knots
no one can undo without destroying
 The new morning gathered me
in blue mist
 like dust under wedding gown
Then I followed the …

Blackboard covered with a dust
 of living chalk, live chaos-cloud
  wormed by turbulence: the rod glides

and the vet narrates shadows
 I can’t quite force into shape:
  His kidneys might . . . the spleen appears . . .

I can’t see what he sees, and so
 resort to simil…

Big blocks of ice
—clear cornerstones—
chug down a turning belt
toward the blades of a wicked,

spinning fan; scraping din
of a thousand skates and then
powder flies out in a roaring
firehose spray of diamond dust,

and the film crew obscures
the well-used Manhattan snow
with a replica …