Go to any window and look out.
            Except it’s not a window,
it’s Head of a Young Girl by Vermeer.
            It’s “Scarlet Town, where I was born.”
It’s the Pequod sailing from Nantucket,
            the notion of Moby Dick on board.
It’s late afternoon in my Eden of guilt
            and I’m listening to Beethoven’s Mass,
the Gloria of that Mass. Betrayed,
            betrayal, escape and remorse—check,
check, check, and check—salvation
            by metaphor alone. Make yourself
a nest in the piney woods, in the tall,
            bending grass by the lake.
But it’s not a nest, no, it’s Young Woman
            at a Window with a Pitcher,
it’s "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,”
            the flopping grass her hair.
Mistakes were made and all is lost,
            but go to a window and look out:
Let me call your attention to her lips.