DAY 7

Not-yet-spring blooms
   as the Cyrillic at Brighton

       Beach, before
the quiet sea, humped

by freighters & on the street
   all is twitching stillness

until cab wheels
   burst a water bottle.

Our noble star
   emits the colors of the zodiac,

speaking to the ground,
       tell me

where the carriage horses go
   at night, divorced

at last from their nameless
   burden.  Their eyes atticsfull

of pine needles, light
   that shifts through canopies.

All must take it easy sometime:
   the busy moths, shiftless

everyone. Cut
   bait & sit on a milk crate,

   take it easy--the black boats
lumber through the salt,

   the air distracts
hammerers of nails, let all subside

   to wanton artifice.

The early room & the stink
   of the paint, the papers.

Waist-high,
   a little lamp of brass
       a little monk made of glass.