Abandoned the actual. Made it
flick, weave like animal rope, dis-
membered faculty asseverating
unity at the head of a gun rack,
perspectival pleasure measured
like bull whips against the post
that saddles us with direction; it
was all away from, that bevy
of years whose forehead beaded
like a sail in the advertent wind.

Angels are also birds, their wings
rubbed raw by flight simulators
and the virtual flak that downs
commercial aircraft; amid all
that circuitry, the holiest of
navigators requires his compass
and the coil that anchors him
to pattern, aircraft control patter
the Bach of background static.

Where the family advertiser hangs
her hat, baby can't be far behind,
her bathwater screams prophesied
by milk (substance of her poems),
suspended between condos, uni-
similar equivalents whose art is
in distinction; the bushes were
different so I didn't waltz in, just
turned my heels and walked toward
the next parking lot, having taken
my path in the woods, or words
diverging from the trees they may
some day hang on, like stencils
on the face of a magician typist,
processor to the stars. Show me
the map again; where has our star
gone and when will it be back
to flicker in, winch us to our actual
fate, this twosome cast on invisible
historical forces whose mention
is oblique in our periscope?

The sea has it, and its caves, those
lips stiff yet inviting, the salt kiss
of our arrival at the coral gate,
pacing more quickly beyond
the zen garden's blurred bounded-
ness, peripatetic philosophers
indistinct to the untrained. School
kids in navy blue skipped down
the walk by the brown temple
and the stream that glinted apart
from any city measured by its
valley's clutter, these arbitrary
because random moments
acquiring currency only this
instant and then gone like
the Eddie Would Go bumper-
sticker on a Jeep in a Kyoto
garage; arc of relation that
pulls like a faucet drain
down the article of my
memoir posted on a bulletin
board in a dark city where
she pretends to be a me
capable of a new make
(not yet pronounced
"makay"), tags of my
present vehicle unexpired.

Pub. Feb. 1999