All around me, butterflies,
ecstatic hinges,
hunt for the ideal door.
A cicada’s ratchet
tightens a place in the yard.
Everything’s warmed
by a wave from the tree.

A bird trickles like the tap.

And the dog just stands there,
looking down.
Run, sleep, she can’t remember.
It’s hard to be conscious.

From here, I can watch the freeway—
ants on a windowsill.
The skyline doodles, an airplane
seems to float like a fish.

Nearby, a factory smokes.
I’m one of its little ash-trays.
Suddenly, a dinosaur,
or Rome, will rise,
then crumble, in the cracks
on a ragged wall.

We do marvelous things
without knowing how,
like the chicken whose bronze shit
builds a shrine under its coop.

But, even so,
one gets depressed.
This morning, a field,
a flock of stones
asleep in its mist…
This world’s painted
on a glass that has
to break.

I can still
pay the rent
and the roads aren’t lined
with corpses yet.

1979