Celestial Bodies for Minor Lenses

Digging up a false humility, bereft of seed
he shut the last window to converse with the street—
the neighbors at this hour unconcerned with wheel spin

or newsprint snagged on homeless shapes. Promises
assumed the form of swearing, dictation from the damned
pictures taken on a drive through a fruit-plush valley.

We stole but didn’t own the two-lanes’ divinations :
Sikh temples, hobbled aqueducts, a pendulous orchard
yielding gravestone. Great and secret lies blew about 

feral, darkening the headwaters of the city. Courting
a madness our arms couldn’t hold, heavy with surrender 

to interior barrens—in spite of this. The park teems
with creatures, gorged each night on constellations’ chaff.

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