what with shed hair or
a drawer full of comics. See: that’s you with a beard.
Paneled the walls a body of bookcases, page marked by a pressed herb.
The porch is a safety and stutters as my janey hands
at vertebrae or a sketchmark
                    (through latticed door an uttered fine-fine
                                    seeming Father K. his white collar.
                                    I’ve set inkblot to jawline, why
                                    the better for command, dear,
                                    think stratagem)


In which morning is crowsfeet, shirt shrugged down
your back a funeral suit and the one
name you’ve called me sidled up to the bedpost,
scratching its long eee. Quiet as paper.
When I ask had the street a pounding color
you say thorn in the footbed. On your rendition
of the Nicene Creed I said too early,
shouldered my skin against.

Or it’s the window painted by number, the fresco detail:
hey your yard’s scrub-grass. Your arm’s on fire, how
didn’t you notice.