The city has a name
which has forgotten me.
There, two men live, each
hoping to fill the missing part
of the other. They tend to dream
the same hyacinth dream.

 

There is an asylum on a hill
in the city which guards it.
I almost remember the story—
a man runs mad
to the corner of two streets
shaded by pines.

 

Once there and not there,
all at once, he climbs a light pole
and makes a nest,
perched, now flipping pages
of an old paperback.

 

After an hour a patrol stops
and calls to him. Birds worth naming
fly V then broken V
like white ribbons.

They said he’s done this before.

 

 

There is an absence in the heart—
rotini boils in a pot

without water. Dinner will eat
itself under the supper table.

 

There is no grace.

 

Afterwards, our husband and wife
wash dishes that were left for weeks

 

by someone neither has ever seen.

 

It is like that here—
dumb and blind with snow.

 

The night never expects night to end,
like winter dragging itself

 

into late May fields. In the plaza,
two men sit at a table and drink dark beer.

 

From another town
music pours over the far hills in horizons.

                   3

There is a vault under the asylum
saving the remnants of the city.

 

Mice roam like gods under a dark
cracked sky devouring anything—

 

the rookie Mickey Mantle, an incisor
tucked in a little pocket inside a little pillow—

 

Anything worth anything but still remaining—
a love note written from the sane

 

to the insane, neither one knowing
what damages the other most,

 

a pocket magnifying scope, half-filled
tax returns, photographs of a father

 

standing short and proud by a cornfield.
There are things no one wants to dig up.

 

Trust me. I’m not telling you
the mice are as big as cats.

 

                   4

The city is full. It is late August
and the streets will disappear like romance,
everything but the clouds heading south
for the cold. If we could stop them,
we would. Hill pines surrounding
the asylum are winded and ready
to topple with a touch.

 

A man and woman walk hand in hand
through bad light,
home. He looks for love
like keys in his pocket. We have all loved
poorly. Along the street the bars
and their neon signs glow open,
the night now drunk with darkness.

 

The streets have names no one
here can pronounce. Some words
mean other things, some,
just what they are.