Bell Canyon Still Life

I've found a system of safe harbors, to ward off

terror, Sontag said. Oh, this autumn's losses

and its small mercies: your honey-colored hair,

hands clutching the cocktail shaker, delicate

fingers assembling three beans above the foam.

For luck, you tell me. If terror is what we think—

outliving the animals we love, or being abandoned

to nature, or the way my building has no walls,

a loose lock—what's a safe harbor but our stroll

down the street's center, or lying on a single pillow,

bodies curled close like parentheses, exchanging

quiet breaths? Maybe more the moon swinging

in the sky's hammock—here it hangs above

the houses, here we point to it from your car,

here it shines on my walk home, and I think

of you: lips purpled with red wine, honey,

the warmth of your palm on my spine.