I found that I could not walk
One night in the South my legs became sleepy
While reading a poem
A million stones settled
And bound me

There was a sandcastle in my chest
My desk reached in and time took to wheezing
An elaborate arc
Of floodlights and bark in
Vigil surround me

I was a corpse in a window display
But then through the glass relief came oozing
I forget decisions
Confronted with visions
Of worthless shortcomings

We met in a shadowed hour
Where foliage and moths embroidered the garden
Anecdotal retention
The weight of a question
Are hidden by laughing

Like a vassal to my brain
I begged you to stop me from dancing
But the smile of a room
And a glass like a tomb
Go figure, distort me

You know I never can understand
Why songs about this are songs about movement
The continuity’s absent
There’s only fistfuls of instance
And visions abounding

Sometimes in the wings of a giant night
The gloom of half-light and rising vapor
Carries me to a grave
Where the tight-knit and brave
Converge and astound me

But the glimpse of a second shoreline
Sets rain on the dunes obstructing a valve
And at the base of my toes
The strength of that coast
Dismantles the quarry

I never know when the threshold falls
Eyes down and like a vole I structured my sentence
But at the meeting of hands
And the exchange of a glance
All trying was pointless

And on the brink of a whispered epithet
All shortcomings are worthless