Incurable Cloud
       

Don't know why, but the dog is barking.
Rain pesters the roof,
faint but incessant, like shame.
In the dark I see the tall posts
but not the wire fence that separates
the vineyard from the road.
The eyes are not doors. They
are small containers.
They cannot hold the moon,
but they hold its flare.
They cannot hold the departed,
but they hold their names—
Dom, Julius, Caroline.
Under a balcony, where it is dry,
someone has dragged two chairs
and left them. Fallen
from the elms, leaves curl
into empty cups, pale basins.
I cannot love what doesn't
fret or crumble or grow cold.
I cannot bear to love what does.
Wind rummages through the screen.
Lying under a blanket, I close
one eye. The room closes the other.

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Copyright © 2017 Adam Giannelli All rights reserved
from Tremulous Hinge
University of Iowa Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission