To Urania

Everything has its limit, including sorrow.

A windowpane stalls a stare. Nor does a grill abandon

a leaf. One may rattle the keys, gurgle down a swallow.

Loneliness cubes a man at random.

A camel sniffs at the rail with a resentful nostril;

a perspective cuts emptiness deep and even.

And what is space anyway if not the

body's absence at every given

point? That's why Urania's older than sister Clio!

In daylight or with the soot-rich lantern,

you see the globe's pate free of any bio,

you see she hides nothing, unlike the latter.

There they are, blueberry-laden forests,

rivers where the folk with bare hands catch sturgeon

or the towns in whose soggy phone books

you are starring no longer; farther eastward surge on

brown mountain ranges; wild mares carousing

in tall sedge; the cheekbones get yellower

as they turn numerous. And still farther east, steam dreadnoughts or cruisers,

and the expanse grows blue like lace underwear.