Phases. Mischa Willett

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СКАЧАТЬ wine and we spilled

      you? When a penny we spent?

      He replied, do you remember

      the time I was in the desert

      and you were a date tree? When

      we slid the merman back over

      the bow? Surely, I tell you now,

      whenever you have hewn

      a forest of weak trees,

      whenever outfoxed a sphinx,

      whenever walked on a pond

      that’s frozen there you have

      stood on the sea.

      The people were amazed.

      And sore. And afraid.

      The Help

      Since the angel offered

      the bowl of holy

      water like a tray of sweet-

      meats at a cocktail gathering

      she was—ahem—hosting,

      I took one, by which I mean some,

      like chestnuts were a-roasting

      and it was Christmas, which,

      in the way that all masses

      are feasts of Christ, I sup-

      pose it was.

      Since she seemed easy

      bearing its scalloped shell,

      pleased even to hold

      the half-ton marble well,

      I didn’t feel bad for her,

      standing at the entrance

      these many centuries, still as stone,

      like an attendant at a washroom,

      which it also was.

      On Dante

      I thought about those green

      beans and onions all day

      after having rejected them

      for more orange chicken

      on my weekend trip to the mall.

      The regret eats me indelicately.

      How differently. . .

      Now I’ll blow around

      like street trees: pretty, but

      roots not deep enough to reach

      the good water.

      I rerun the movie

      of you driving through

      the night alone, and all

      night long.

      The Greek Word for Want

      Though I’ve been to Penshurst,

      and Versailles, the house Shakespeare

      was supposedly born in (or was it

      his wife?) this is my favorite—

      apart from the cats, I mean—

      I’d get rid of those, and most of

      the owners’ things, P.G. Wodehouse

      collection notwithstanding. They’re vacationing

      in Paris, and while I house sit,

      imagining the dinners and dances

      (dances!) I’d host if this little palace

      were mine, they’re having a painter

      do the ceiling of the nursery with Greek

      constellations in blue and gold.

      How are Greek constellations different

      than anyone else’s you ask?

      That’s easy.

      They have gods in them.

      Artifact

      Pot shard in a frame:

      the same as holding one’s breath

      to remember the air, keeping

      a lock of his hair. You weren’t there,

      or, if you were, you’re not there

      now, and this remembering doesn’t

      put you back there somehow.

      It’s a dream of having what

      you don’t: a postcard from Rome,

      talking on the phone.

      I think to pocket maybe some small

      piece that will call it all up for me.

      Standing in the museum,

      I’m trying to think how it will be

      to be back. I won’t be the same,

      and it won’t be anything like here,

      but, having nothing to show,

      I won’t be able to give you

      the difference I want you to know.

      With Reckless

      Just in time to catch the winter

      wind, the willow prematurely

      leaves, stringing wild

      hair behind—not like a child

      running, whose speed won’t lift

      even the lightest СКАЧАТЬ