1.
The glowing black wall radiates grains of darkness. Drifting in clouds, sticking in the eyes, they thin enough to allow a glimpse, a remembrance of good food to cause a hunger in the groin, a thirst for honey in the cup. Must I remain in this mixture of tangibles and intangibles, fixes and questions about directions until I am comfortable? Feeling so close to an answer, I cannot rest, the looming is so loud I cannot concentrate, and I strain to see things among the shadows. Swimming in the darkness, floating in a doubtful pool, I reach for things of substance: a wet belly and breasts to rest upon.
2.
He said he lived six months close off the Atlantic coast in a boat. But anything I’d say about that boat is pure fake except the sail. He said it had a sail. Nor is there need to fake a whole coastline, just portions of the poem, now and then a pretense of setting the scene; some hard corners, a cabin full of things to get lost in. In a dream he stepped up and out the front door, stooping, a tall man onto the deck of grass wet with dew, at night, and lamplight back in the cabin.
3.
As if he were a carpenter, he spoke of cutting, and qualities of wood; or a truck driver, he told of ten miles just below Albany, all brick. He was clogged with a mass of contiguous detail, an artist with tables of papers and scattered tools, stacks of faded drawings. He was trying to touch the stream again. But the show of progress is false in the face of such simple movement: The man pacing, the tables pointing toward the window.
