The dalliance of springboards,
the lingering impression of an off-black blouse.
Facts, said Ham, too often confide an edifice
with no hint of what hides behind.
They had just come from seeing the clairvoyant.
She told them that like Clint Eastwood,
Louise had been born on an eclipse.
Since her moon was in Sagittarius, she could live
in a foreign country if ever she chose. In the cafe,
the service was slow: the waitress had taken up smoking
and a bald man was asking for more.
Across the street, a building stood facing its final demise.
A mud-spattered window in a double-hung door
was all that divided outside from in.
To Louise, the conversation seemed all too familiar—
I feel, she said to the other, like a sheet grown soft
with the deadweight of difficult sleep. She turned her head
(She was like a poplar, she was like a river, she was
like a hyacinth . . .).
What you are, said Ham, is beauty.
Empty, she said. No inbreath, no eyeblink.