Against Vanishing

Don't you remember. Don't you go
and remember on me Winter stars,
so far nothing Summer couldn't make

a decent Spring of. It's easy enough
to pass off as immortal a while
those branches I'd broken in the yard,

now putting forth a quiet green I'll take
as tragicomic April, steadily blurred
or snapped into light the air

would've been full of had I had any
say. All of it seems fine, your face
in me, proof the day is getting late,

a paint I have the sense of here. Weren't
paintings frequently to realize people
walk into a place, and with any luck

back out again, while everywhere the streets
are being blue, rain-attended, ending-
appropriate? Some thought themselves

themselves, some light industry,
the presence and example of good or a dream
to that effect. Soon we're able to say

a little storm on which the sun was kind
of shining made a monochrome
of many things, and silver light, day

enough to feel assured we fully understand
the impact of skin on raindrops, innocent
bystanders at whose hands this lays itself

open. Outside the skin, for instance, circled
the kitchen and Mozart on the radio.
Curtains sucked through open windows

fanned against the brick. One came home
to have been gone at all. I stood
not thinking this to know it

has a life of its own—death—one
great nothing to measure against
whatever's considered delivered

by us pickers-up-of pebbles at the beach.
Piece by piece, the empty boats and sound
of shops closing takes shape, short on piers

and long on footprints let's just leave
and leave at that.

Copyright © 2006 James D'Agostino All rights reserved
from Nude With Anything
New Issues
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission