We own none of it—why

sunlight affixes on to the lake the sky, within which birds of paradise

skim with no intent beyond what they nakedly offer,

without the wind made to say Where are my hands, I would like mine

covered by yours, wind the color of an ending about to be known

or a green stayed too long—we’re days when temporariness is

                                             all we’ve hoped for without

thinking it through: why the body goads itself with its own appetite,

as if there’s never been proof that the decision to relent

is in the end the same or yields the same result as powerlessness,

we’ve tried to speak less of it now that we’re as much what we lack

as what we see—this house where each shadow is

a warm ghost, we’re always a soul we can’t swim in, has the water closed

over my face, dearest, you’re the warning out of every happiness.