February Elegy

This bald year, frozen now in February.

This cold day winging over the ugly

Imperfect horizon line,

So often a teeth line of ten buildings.

A red flag flapping

In the wind. An orange curtain is noon.

It all hurts her eyes. This curtain is so bright.

Here is what is noticeably true: sight.

The face that looks back from the side

Of the butter knife.

A torn-bread awkwardness.

The mind makes its daily pilgrimage

Through riff-raff moments. Then,

Back into the caprice case to dream

In a circle, a pony goes round.

The circle's association: There's a center

To almost everything but never

Any certainty. Nothing is

More malleable than a moment. We were

Only yesterday breathing in a sea.

Some summer sun

Asked us over and over we went. The sand was hot.

We were only yesterday tender hearted

Waiting. To be something.

A spring. And then someone says, Sit down,

We have a heart for you to forget. A mind to suffer

With. So, experience. So, the circus tent.

You, over there, you be the girl

In red sequins on the front of a card selling love.

You, over there, you, in black satin.

You be the Maiden's Mister Death.

Source: Elegy (Graywolf Press, 2007)