May 2013

In a hotel, even prayer feels adulterous,
the skyline smudged in light, a distraction
just before dusk. In the lobby

a woman tells a stranger what she will do
for three hundred dollars, what
she will do for four. Some have the custom

of...

              Night. Or what


                                       they have of  it at altitude
like this, and filtered
                           air, what was

in my lungs just an hour ago is now
                            in yours,
                                        ...

The animal of winter is dying,
its white body everywhere
in collapse and stabbed at
by straws of   light, a leaving
to believe in as the air
slowly fills with darkness
and water drains from the tub
where my daughter, watching...