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August long ago, the summer Lemnian
(not like the deeds of those who killed their men),
the self a glowing bead, like Hephaestus falling
daylong out of heaven in the old story,
the island's interior a forge, a glory hole,
the odor of wild thyme borne offshore steadily,
the Aegean Sea purple, wine-dark, without epithet;
and as I walked on the beach, my mother not long dead,
the perfect crystal of my self-regard
so lately flawed, and landscape made to echo
my own low cry in the island's empty places,

They were nearing the end of their story.
The fire was dying, like the fire in the story.
Each page turned was torn and fed
to flames, until word by word the book
burned down to an unmade bed of ash.
Wet kindling from an orchard of wooden spoons,
snow stewing, same old wind on the Gramophone,
same old wounds. Turn up the blue dial
under the kettle until darkness boils
with fables, and mirrors defrost to the quick
before fogging with steam, and dreams
rattle their armor of stovepipes and ladles.

Catalpas blooming up and down Catalpa Street, car alarms blooming
up and down Waveland Avenue — an instant of nature without the narrative.
O face-in-your-morning-juice, swimmer-in-an-old-wool-suit,
we sit side by side on the steps smoking the same cigarette,
watching children who live alone, women married to the wrong men.

Over the border the barrier winds,
devouring orchards of various kinds.

Cursed be he that taketh away
the landmark of his neighbor.
And all the people shall say, Amen.

The road was blocked in a battle of wills —
as the lame and sightless trudged through the hills.

Cursed be he that maketh the blind
to go astray in the way.
And all the people shall say, Amen.

When her recorded voice on the phone
said who she was again and again to the piles
of newspapers and magazines and the clothes

in the chairs and the bags of unopened mail
and garbage and piles of unwashed dishes.

When she could no longer walk
through the stench of it, in her don’ t-need-nobody-
to-help-me way of walking, with her head

bent down to her knees as if she were searching
for a dime that had rolled into a crack

This is Tarsus, one place like anyplace else.
And this is my circuit, the rodeo, fair.
The farmboys blow through here in pickups, wild
as horses in their oat sacks.
The women wear spurs.
In the trailers the cattle are pounding for air.

Zeh was a pharmacist,
or claimed to be,
times were tranquil, people didn’ t ask too many questions,
but when a new broom came along, it was duly “established that” etc.
and it all contributed to his downfall.

Zeh was an incomparable magician
shelves full of powders and tinctures
not that he had to sell them to you
you were persuaded of their efficacy
in advance.

One rusty horseshoe hangs on a nail
above the door, still losing its luck,
and a work-collar swings, an empty
old noose. The silence waits, wild to be
broken by hoofbeat and heavy
harness slap, will founder but remain;
while, outside, above the stable,
eight, nine, now ten buzzards swing low
in lazy loops, a loose black warp
of patience, bearing the blank sky
like a pall of wind on mourning
wings. But the bones of this place are
long picked clean. Only the hayrake's
ribs still rise from the rampant grasses.

Mauve mist-shadow cloaks the sky’ s
River-blurred, inchoate border.
Dawn’ s old story; and light tries —
Not the last time — to devise
Lasting order;

From first principles assigns
Laws to frame day’ s jurisdiction;
Drawing contours, shapes, and lines
From the nebula, it shines,
Strange as fiction.

They pay us time and a half
and don’ t dare catch us
drinking: we don’ t insist,
don’ t pass a bottle, but each sips
a private pint, all sitting
in the narrow room with our backs
to the center, each facing
his work — router, stain tray,
buffing wheel, drill press —
and with that sweet taste echoing
in our bones, we watch our hands