Late in the Anger
I wake on this path of this path supine beneath swaying fronds and boughs
with the woman watching me and over me wondering at our fled cities our myriad parents all younger now than we
at the little we eat with our minds The map will say we have driven ten thousand years to get here but there are no years in praise
and she has never slept and can finish no dream Around us the pin oak leaves lie scattered cupped and brittle as chitin
And my poor reason like an jowly man’s black and silver reflection obliterated by his sudden water in a toilet
And the largest self like a worm writhing each time against the hook’s barb
With my own mouth she insists You must be forgiven by the facts of this life
And our secret goes out secret from us and returns in the finches jitting branch to branch only so high and so low through their habit of long succession
