Marianne Boruch

B H O

On rain washed paper dried, ink

On rain washed paper dried, ink
still blurs. But all words
are stains. The paper’ s rippled
lunar, mountain and crater,

and seas on the moon, misnomer
of plains that looked like
water once, no-end-to-it shadows,
fractal to fractal. The telescope’ s eye

fooled the eye. From there, does
earth rise and set? Or a thrush,
would it sing its trouble backward? —
the most private tremor first, then