Closure
[a chinese painting]


This is the heaven of your destruction.

Cranes surrounded by palm trees on either side.

The Gulf of Mexico lies between us.

Across the country, asphalt roads break into dirt.
                                                 _ 
Once we could have curled through the skies as luongs.


Your feet are immersed to the tarsus in the Everglades; you

sought eternal life, but you seek on a vulture's peak.

The depth of the Pacific came close to drowning.

Claws of a woman-once-fox are imbedded in your chest.

A peony wilts.


This heart is a bare orchard, that once dropped peaches.