fingers in your hair like harp strings
Star Anise          and acne 
wishbone split clean     and perfect
tzompantli               (skull rack)
The Anatomy      of the Horse
The boatbuilders,          starting to sing
to each other,     like spinning     sticky     rain
digital     relief     models     of the river valley
and the storm     from the plane 
A long life     held only in place     by brief pauses.
oracle bone script,     island     of white
blossom     and herons,     shifting     grey
silver     white     gold     pink,     knuckles    
blushing,     silver     birch
A life,     in leather jackets,     posing     at Herculaneum

I have seen pine trees,     loved them     & their properties     & their God
since I was a child.

At the Temple     de la Sybille,     in full sun
blood     and Vichy Catalan.
the glass bottom boat, the skylight, and the
sycamore                    (simulated     waves)
The Solar Barge     of Sesostris (1985-1988)
(father     of the blind king     Pheron)
Winter’s     Passage     from the Winter
Palace     in Luxor,          gleaming     in green
patina,    and in white     trembling   columns
on the Pont des Suicidés.
mosaics     of hanging     pig     carcasses
octopus,     tobacco,     and mackerel 
the Jardim     do Príncipe     Real
paused     at the moment     of fragment 
when the sky     would become     the canal

the pink     gridded     mantra page,     pinned 
to the plastered wall

a galaxy     of choreography     on the Bowery,
in Dim Sum Palace,     and the blizzard     outside,
in your bright     blue     mohair     jumper 
showed me     The Ascent     of the Blessed

(from the Visions     of the Hereafter)          A City
Lament     (in the collapsing     present)     of a city
after     Paris
(all cities     are laments     after Paris)
almost touching     embroidered     on black velvet
A Voyage     on the North Sea          (from 1973
-74)                         hearing     distant    rumours
of a war               in the Peloponnese 
marking off     the days     with blades     of grass
(McCarren Park)          or with skeins     of snow
years ago          today               listening     to
Music     from Saharan     WhatsApp
I never thought          you’d be          everything
the shape          of the smoke          in the room 
W 15 th St.          in the dusks     of an argument
intermittently     gasping     for air

The caprification     of fig trees
on the Turkish     Aegean 
(A Thousand Strings)

after the excavation     of thousands     of terracotta vessels
gridded the site     and left     under floodlights 
dappled    under    tamarind     trees

the lip of the bowl     (after Shōji Hamada)
sketched     on graph paper

and the chandelier     swung

the Berenike Buddha, lowered
into folds     of raw linen

October,     cross legged     on the bed     peeling blood oranges
simmering     coconut milk     and curry leaves      
sweet,     in the next room’s     tinsel

the white     Cycladic     marble     birds,     infinite
smoking     honey     for your throat     and warm
Lucozade,     hours     outside     of history

every car alarm     for a square mile,     at least 
every     gold and silver     dolphin.

Go,               and bury          slaughtered          oxen,
bees will spring     from the rotted corpse     of them,
and wasps          from the body          of the horse

and on the banks of the Nile     the ox would be buried upright,
so that the horns     would protrude     from the mud
and sometime after,     when the horns     would be severed
would find hordes     and clustered     swarms of them

the hives          anointed               with nard          and myrrh
or with thyme               or with white          poplar

and the horns,     and the bones,     and the hair,
and nothing else left

when the fleet,     casting anchor     at Rhodes,
threw earthenware pots     in the sea,
and as time     went on,          and mud     formed     around them,
and eleven days after          were hoisted 
and were found     encrusted     with oysters

Others,          having dried fenugreek     in the sun,          lay it in vessels:
(eight ounces     of well-ground     fenugreek)
and they pitch their casks with it,          for must     and for black vinegar,
and they pitch          the seams          of their ships               before leaving 
from Chios,               from Pyrrha     in Lesbos,               from Crete
and from ruin,          and shading their wares from the heat

and would spread          their ideas              like mould
between     creases