Days of 2017
I started again at Cavafy, and saw poetic eyes
in every face I’d meet. All soon lost, even
in the mid-afternoon, when the limestone
glowed like gold, with that slight volume
slowly crushed in my bag through those
very streets it changed. Or even transfigured.
I remember holding the first few ‘serious’ books
in my life like lovers. After dark, windows
thrown open to so many moths. Pale, unhealthy
wings, beating at a glass they couldn’t seem to miss.
I must since have grown cruel, or slightly
practical, not so much to people but definitely
to printed matter. Wanton at a library desk,
less so at wine taverns. Pray for me,
at shrines pagan or otherwise–whatever
survives this casual moment of history.
The Kindling 