for Jordie (after Azzuro)




List-making is a prophylaxis against loss.

— Wayne Koestenbaum




the moon that knew just what I was there for  |  the heap on the floor

of Yevtushenko’s Waiting  |  Jean Lee  |  Joni  |  the largest of Kandinsky’s

Several Circles  |  my sleeveless passport  |  a poorly framed found-family

portrait  |  the inelastic band no longer holding it together  |  a lack of oxygen  |

my Lake Wobegon tee  |  hope waiting  |  The Frugal Repast  |  no-name towns

on the un-place half of a snow-dome  |  swinging glass mati  |  a curse an art

period  |  Laura Wingfield’s roses  |  the trim on Sister Victoire’s summer

wimple  |  wine of a type  |  crime of a type  |  a thin line of a type  |  worry

to which my mind inclines at night  |  hydrangeas rooted in soil less alkaline  |

Moses  |  the sea part  |  my mythic mother  |  the earth from outer space  |

Challenger lifting off to smithereens  |  denim culottes flip-flapping about

the legs of orphanage lay staff  |  Hail Marys  |  my fingertip & thumb from

decades on a toxic starter rosary  |  an origami icosahedron from my ex  |

my ex  |  2007-10  |  aqua profonda  |  the ur-dot in the Seine in Seurat’s

study for Bathers at Asniéres  |  all possible beginnings  |  all probable ends

this poem  |  your poem  |  & the Japanese door curtain’s ombré effect  | |