by James Kimbrell

    has a giant hand diagrammed in front of her place

    on West Tennessee.

    It towers above a kudzu hill as if

    to offer a cosmic How！

    as in Hello！ from a long

    way off， as in how

    she already knows

    the sundry screwed up ways a day

    can go days before

    I park my wreck on the hill again beside

    her white Mercedes.

    O little slice of Lebanon！

    O cedar scented

    cards fanned like feathers

    of a Byzantine peacock！

    Tell me again how I might have been a fine lawyer，

    that I'll raise four kids in Tallahassee，

    how I married-it's true-on my lunch break-Yez

    she took you to lunch okay a zeven year lunch ha ha！

    Incense. Mini-shrine.

    A wagon train of chihuahuas snoozing by her slippers.

    You have anxious about a furniture… I do.

    But lately I've grown cold，

    unconsoled by her extrasensory view.

    I think no need to speak-across

    the black tabletop， I don't want to know

    if I'll find a bright city，

    a room by the river， a love

    I will recognize

    by her dragonfly

    tattoo. O narrative of ether！

    O non-refundable

    life facts！ say that what happens may not matter，

    or that it matters as any

    story does when two fresh lovers

    embrace the old pact

    （her bra on the chair，

    his socks in the kitchen） that says

    their love is level，

    unfabled， new. Level with me，

    tell me why the dogs on the floor，

    little moon fed hounds of Delphi， seem so over it，

    so done with the fleas of destiny.

    Maybe that's the right attitude，

    no need to ask why I'm here on a perfectly blue Friday，

    content with what the thin air，

    what the dust motes in the light say near the high window.

    I should've learned that music long ago

    O soundless number！

    O jukebox of being that the dogs dream to！

    No faux crystal ball，

    no tea leaves or terrace in the nether

    reaches of my palm

    will make her answers

    less like hocus pocus in a purchased dark.

    It's time to pay， to drive away

    from telepathic altitudes， to say adieu

    to why love ends. How

    How a heart opens again.

    Why anything is true.