What is your name?

                    Yes, . . .

You see, sooner or later, everything falters 

into radiance. The smallest components of our pent-up 

contingencies ignite. Energy shimmers in every cell. 

This afternoon, for example, from the balcony 

of my condo, in which I have lived exactly 

three years, . . .

Someone’s sister in Europe writing her

adultery poems late night, half bottle 

of wine pretty much required. 

And they’re good, they really are— 

The things one hears in an elevator. 

Perfect strangers. . . .

Enters in the heroic mode, feathered

And helmeted, muscle-bound

For glory, smelling of scorch. Raise

That sword a little higher

If you can lift it and buckle your straps

Tight. Insert fanfare. . . .

It looks like dancing the merengue, 

like reading Anna Karenina on a tablet in the dark car, 

the window’s greening glow against the night. 

Or: like the horse in the stall waiting for the gun 

and the gate thumping open.  . . .

To love a thing

whose demise

you can foresee:

a swallow flying

through a windstorm, 

a teapot cracked.

A lopsided house,

stone roof off

center, . . .