The year, this distance—
when
brightly his face hums
and ticks like a washed
penny,
and you can see him now
as a co-worker or neighbor
or someone with whom you
are willing to dissolve an empty
hour on a train.
O, the winking
unshuttered transient heart.
His bridgework, his thin
and yellowed nails.
No. The trees, whipping black
as the stitched binding of my book.
What mysteries. The Word, pierced
and dangling,
and dark as amethyst.
