MELANCHOLIA

A window imagines
remote constellations

and the moon resists each
association, not like anything

they compare it to.
I spend the night thinking

about gravity’s grip on the bed,
the body. About the way

blood behaves, conscious
of pulse; counting. Habit

like pacing unyielding boards.
In the dream you are holding me.

Then mornings flush radiant;
the phone will ring and be answered.

In our separate cities, we are always
talking. Traffic distant on two streets,

voice and idiom slip one to another
(you say capacities, say caprices).

Today half of everything drops
to the pavement. I think you mean

losing ground but you say falling apart.
There is a lapse. An aside. There is

a faraway word, glimmering
impossible. Afternoon I call, hear

the machine voice the unchanging
tone and I wonder what will I say.

I spend all day thinking about my heart.
It’s undeniable, the greed

with which the telephone rings and
goes on ringing. In the dream,

you enter the room, you open your mouth
as if you might speak. Wonder

then what did I say. As if you might call
or cry out. You open your mouth:

red lips pink tongue and
the shining white edges of every tooth.