Zero Summer (2008)

Sapless days. We should be wasting time,
talked-about. Shamed into games
of silences as we grow older,
our mouths shaping zeroes. But come,

this is an age of prose! So, a
grandiloquent party at the summer palace.
We accept its maze: corridors at random,
sunrooms of caprice. Morning

decanted through, heat hard
at the windows. Come wrap
the throat of a vase with the blue boa.

Viola music. In the fernery you say
what a pity it is that beauty lifts
so early. Blood beats
on our underchin and palms.