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.