I
Like heavy muslin
there is air around my house.
A goblet half-full
of vinegar on my desk.
Tangerines are spoiled globes
in a bowl.
I keep looking
as if I were thinking about the fog
which settles into the orchard
imagining what’s beyond me.
Downstairs oil in a skillet
garlic browns
as if from another year
from a time
when you were a shape in my life.
The pots hanging over the sink
are from some other kitchen
where I once lived.
II
I look into the vaporous evening
making a lap
between two hills.
When certain shadows dovetail
and make a spectacular figure
in a corner of the house
you keep me from myself.
Outside are your shapes
eyelashes on a bird’s nest
a graceful branch like a clavicle,
toenails, elongated fingers
sprouting from the upturned roots of my apple tree.
Whole trees I feel
as if they were inside me, splintered.
III
In some other room
you sleepbeyond the white air.
Your heart, a syllable plucking
sound from the night.
There’s a space I cannot enter,
some unfathomable vertebra
like a shell
and I am kept from myself.
Outside the street is no longer visible.
When you turn on your side
the water with its veined wave
breaks on the air between us.
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