This glass is alone underneath

my table, my checkerboard where

once or many times I played with

my great-uncle that never was old

until he died. Whether it is heat

or something else that forms it,

an immensely chip-able object,

had I strength and a towel

I would think, later, to break it
as if the hand were street and glass an echo,

clink of song bringing itself back

hard bits and pieces, immense sleepless sound.

As I Have Said Over and Over Again, Love is an Ocher-Red Leaf

Let me remind you of my hands, which have not felt love

in so long they ache of tendinitis

that strengthening will not help

whose ligaments are not dancing

little finger that once spliced over

a body that moved in time Tell me

time, track backwards an old

twist of words--what is motion,
something foolish, a wrist

so half-heartedly broken

and sprained in five places
while ash bristles the side of the chimney.

Love, I am underneath you, I am

as if blessed by you. Tell me
time, what roundness must
I feel in order to be like

water, clear and settled in the glass, how

tenderly it wobbles and nuzzles

toward the edge, tipping, undulating

being shaped by the hard edges

of a terribly breakable thing.