1. In this place

Was it ever autumn here?
Seven wicked birds
gaunt as pins
stitch sky to asphalt,
gnawing on the light's last
crumb.
Inside the trees, the rising stops
like love.
Some of the heart's great silences
entered me, a terrible trembling
in this place.

2. June is becoming

Is there one hour when children are not
forced to adolescence?
One minute when the city is barred from destruction,
like stars beneath the soldier's boot of dawn?
One moment?

I have more time than I want.
A block of light gripped
through the walls
of breathing nights,
breathing days,
wonderful siege of vanishing ages.

1. In this place

Was it ever autumn here?
Seven wicked birds
gaunt as pins
stitch sky to asphalt,
gnawing on the light's last
crumb.
Inside the trees, the rising stops
like love.
Some of the heart's great silences
entered me, a terrible trembling
in this place.

2. June is becoming

Is there one hour when children are not
forced to adolescence?
One minute when the city is barred from destruction,
like stars beneath the soldier's boot of dawn?
One moment?

I have more time than I want.
A block of light gripped
through the walls
of breathing nights,
breathing days,
wonderful siege of vanishing ages.

I have more than it seems.
Sometimes, even now,
burning blindness of the streets.
June
a name I won't utter again,
June, June
the whole world rings with June,
complaining rasp of warbler wings
determined murmur, like flames, of dandelions
as in another city
the groaning sea appears,
as I've realized since I was a boy
a moment before this day
a single chance, twice missed
to drown.

3. A barrage

Have I fallen? The air's shackles
echo the chrysanthemums' journey—
quick and bitter—
to their ending, like first sex:
always awkward and hesitant
the flesh slower than a dream, more opaque
than glass.