To compose my sexless eclogues, I will
Bed down near the sky like the astrologers
And, neighbor to bell-towers, listen dreamily
To the somber wind-carried hymns.
Chin in hand, high …

The neighbor off to the market for bags of salad
leaves me alone with her baby monitor
I’ve set on my balcony jagged with wood

rain-rotted & scarred with yellow …

[What She Was In For]

You learn not to ask ‘What are you in for?’
but what she was in for was parking on the road
outside her house to get …

Not my usual route to the market—past
the railroad tracks, then past

Grace Episcopal Church,
its courtyard empty—no men

clasping hands as though agreeing,
finally, to the difficult terms

of some treaty—so I …