From “Time of Tyranny”
I’m not too old to dance meadowlarks: great punctuation
locks in black and blocks, crepuscular and vain the sun
in its descent. “You kicked up dust”
of which the Ural mountains are but dim reminders
through a wooded alley loud as if disturbed
in the unbuttoned fog that grays a pedestrian’s silhouette
while the passport picture reaching out to me is true or false
to tetrahedral nation-states dead in winter water, enzyme ice.
I cannot fear to be forgotten
a child born another book the dust at dusk
of skilled blind sculptors whose cities sink
the swollen toad, her pride
flamingoes, lilies, and boy flowers
the center of a blue-black vault, an apron, history on it.
