I wasn't always this young.
But gradually my skin learned to smooth over
My insides. I look at myself in the mirror
And see a stiff overcoat that after a decade of winters
Learned its intended form.
I'll say this several thousand times--
But each time I say it, it grows decreasingly true
I used to be old.
There is no belly anymore
My hands learned to push it away, and the
Sharp pains I thought I felt were like religious feelings,
All unreliable.
I have absconded, too, with everything valuable. The lights,
The wine in the cellar and the miscellany--all of it catalogued
But only in the way a desperate imagination remembers things,
Counting them on the fingers once they're missing
There are no ladders to climb and look; I stole them
No lines
Just green spots:
The map of my feet left in urgent space
You will feel less inclined to
Ever make anything in that dimpled mold
Again. You won't find any sugar or pictures--ran the faucets and
Drew cross-hair squares on the walls.
Beside the warm wire beaters and the towel damp with cake
I came and saw the sense that everything was
Filled in--I needed only to replace things
With perfect absences.
I will only say this once:
It was here where I started
Everything is so marvelous out here in the jade evening clippings
Where I am now and swing across the
Fence like a kid's baseball
