Quotidian

 
The sun is starting               

                              to build summer rooms

Bare heads               take on the sheen

    of copper                        

                                the depth of graphite


About the war memorial                the artist said

     she wanted to cut open the earth         

                                    polishing its open sides

like a geode                       She wanted a way to begin


walking 

        toward the encounter with      

                                           loss


Last night as I hunched my shoulders          I felt


a slight deepening                         behind the ridge

       of my collarbone                       

                                    My thumb fit into it

lying down

                                 Already the body looks 

     toward the scenes of oncoming ruin

                                   even as lips graze

its wrists                    its shoulders

           
          Let today at least be a litany
 
                                    for softness

that language cannot exhaust