220

I tried not to want to go the moon
when it followed me home at night.

Now a whole in the roof is there
so I can watch the cold smoke drift
from where I lie.

I watch it detach from the sky
and fall, rolling on my rug.

I reach and my hand goes through it
like a light projection before the screen
and I fall asleep there
on the floor with the air on my back.

219

Cloudy morning and the bit of light
that tints the surface of your sheets
is sweeter.

Time will start moving when you do
or when the birds stop their singing.
The rest of the rooms in your house will wait
for the clouds to clear
or the rain to come.

218

Once a year in April you sing the song
who's words you never understood
and how long do you think it took
to be written?

But you sing it every year
waiting between phrases as your guests
sit around the table and mouth it
to their plates

And between phrases
you close your eyes and the words
are on wires that tickle your neck as your guests
move their mouths

217

We can't keep sitting in the living room
where there was never anything to notice
or anything to say,
and I can't stay.

If we drive until the car breaks down
the tow truck that comes will seem
as if it floated down from nowhere.

We'll stand on the side
of the road we'll never know as light
and you'll have a jacket in your trunk.

216

It comes to you in a drawing of a cottage on a river
on the hotel walls-

In a man with a beard
and a bandana at the bar in the diner.

The rust smell that blows through
the window of the car before rain.

It comes to you and forgets about itself
to the furniture that knows you,
but won't move unless you tell it to.

215

I was tired too, but I hung the new paintings
when you told me you would come.
It's better though, I enjoy them more
than you would anyhow.

214

I was told about the dent in your car
but I didn't look
You'd still have met me at a free concert at the park