ARRANGEMENT IN TERMS OF LIKE, RECIPROCAL, OR CORRESPONDING PARTS
Under her waitress’s dress
is another dress. Another mind
is inside her mind. She brought me this
toast, and under its chafed, black face
there is, no doubt, another.
The bell’s bing swells, subsides. The plate fails again
to appear. Forget it, and in the meantime, the moon. In the meantime,
mud and the colorfast gloom of the stars. When aimed
at a half-silvered mirror, a beam splits in two.
Butterflies, complete at night, find their places
underneath the eaves, between the drainspout and brick walls, around
the dumpster out back, and by the door waiting to be let inside.
An owl could fluff its plumage not far
from here. Unlaunched, its eyes could shine, sequins in the night soil.
Or launched, its talons
would lift unheard
even from the forest floor.
There’s a fog panicking in the ecstatic red
of tail-lights. Night bugs rubberband
around treetops in welcome.
I want to be taken along with them, taken
as a newly established shimmering of an under-
standing mysteriously propagated by light.
Taken as an individual purchase agreement. Taken
as a window painted shut by its frame
is taken. Despite everything, a test of strength
collides with the beauty of entry. How certain I am
that the clay contains something.