Of Modern Poetry
I keep thinking about the violin,
the one we left inside the bow.
How would it feel today,
waking up inside this exhibition,
this late transition,
passed from hand to hand so much?
There is a goblet
that doesn’t want to be smoothed over,
there is a fetish like the afterlife,
that isn’t there when we want it.
And what would you yield to,
if anything?
How is it
this far inside the exhibition?
Do you write for anything?
And we are all miles from something.
We went to see the tree-maker,
the carver, who was gone.
When we finally reached his house
he had taken out the music,
one of many signs.