lord

of the lowercase, of indian pipes,
a locket of thumbnail photographs
that opens across the room,
a galaxy, a red and white peony
slipped in the bronze escutcheon
of an idling gondola—
report to me, you say,
with my eyes and each
of their layered distances,
with my long fingers
drumming on the hem
of the shoreline—did the sea,
you ask, never come so close
as to make me dance?
report to me—within—the hour.
but the trees here are gloved
entirely in ice—the glassblowers
have gone home, all to rinse
the ashes from their lips.
and the door to their transparent studio
was locked; I found it
only by stumbling through it.