Poem

Ocean. One perceivable star.
Blue burnished, close.
A pink collar hangs around
new horizon. I turn my head
and scope the sunset. I turn
my head and note darkness
doing its nightly boast.
Scan the sky, find the star—
first star. So pinpoint,
so answer. Look to its side,
see it. But then any blue
patch offers the thing: a point,
a pin, a white conflagration
far enough to mean little
and soon all the stars
are out. They burn
and I recall the poem
in which I cannot find
you. No one motion
can break the camera
so high over the beach.
The baseball chucked
directly up twists in
for a close-up. The
orderlies far off
in winter, are clean
indifferent to a number
I cannot recall but
looking in this high-rise
for your room, I need
it. And everyone flips
through strangers’ X-
rays. The exact population
of stars means little
to them. The exact
address where I
need to be no one
knows. They keep
calling your place
not a room, but
a kind of paragraph.

 

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