The hardest part is the way the knot at the base of the neck tightens.
There’s a whole body here to hold up the head but this time
you are tired and you want to lie down. Never would a gesture

Why are the hubcaps in the kitchen sink?
I’m having dinner guests, it’s as
simple as that. My organizational

to
clean
over:T

It was no more than the description of a burst of rain 
and handkerchiefs of lightning which burned the secret of trees— 
then why did they resist her?

When you were a little girl you lived on a street that went up a hill and down it again, which gave you from the be- ginning a sense of purpose, a glandular sympathy with the ebb and flow of all life. You weren’t easily fooled, even as a child of seven you looked at the butcher with grave 

The brutes that graved on walls of rock
Patterns of their shaggy God
Knew His thunder, knew His sun,

Meriting slight praise alongside frescoes
still beading with perspiration from the hand

It might be von Hirsau believed he composed
a celebration, these wood panels brushed
with egg and tempera, a medieval man's rendering

Sealed into the cocoon
Of light and water, face
And racked reflection, voice

Of this aspiring burgher who disdained
(Dumb in his pride of mortified reserve)
The usufruct of half a continent.