Prodigal Song

Asleep by the obsolete atlas,

now you can imagine in what hour you are tempted, how far pleases

you best has shifted. Spiral-scalped apples, a barbed

wire of cloud, a gate

uplocked at dawn. What things can you take

for welcome? A shade. A bell rushed close to the eyes

is a portraiture of noise, is a window paying gaze is between you

blood. You scarcely know what takes you in. The air

is charged with versions.

“Prodigal Song” is reprinted from Weather Eye Open (University of California Press, 2006).