i don't just leave anything. not well enough
alone, not a question i could answer. i keep
what's mine collected.

i could make a room holy out of anything earthly.
they don’t teach you that at princeton. they don’t say
what to say when that man makes his meticulous exit.

can you imagine? an hour
to do nothing. count chickens,
blessings, fucks left to give,
stretch the body long, let
the body do the the living.

i do not mean a metaphor. i fed him salmon 
in september & astonished him with weight. 
told him buy land, buy a truck, better yet, 
buy nothing. watch birds & sleep 
four thousand hours. i

in the thick of a row i tell my beloved 
i would like to kick his head off. 

the only star we know to have cataclysmed pine nuts
into existence—bringing close six songs i can hear
where i’m sitting—lies down quiet this evening,
unlike everyone else.

i wasn't born patient—i made me this way. believing
the black birds show me. it took believing. when i say
i mean faith. i mean—could you look at me now and not
say miraculous? i call you just the same. my dove.

It's a simple trick, really. I say this out loud, then sit back and watch the horse drawings roll in.