A Place I Plan to Admire as Much as One I Can’t See

Every day I go to your building

and deliver the same news,

even though it changes

every other hour. So red where

you live and no one moves

inside, though the bricks

reveal implications of light.

A husband said I want exactly

what you want but not

exactly to me—you can’t

make those decisions for them

and not my story anyway:

HI I NEGLECT YOU BYE.

What about a paragraph

behaves most like a room

was another thing we didn’t spend

a lot of time

worrying about, but time you can

usually squeeze as you might

a little gray paint

from a tube—only spelled

G-R-E-Y or named

something else altogether,

like an emotion made of clay

or an animal they claimed

to have invented

for the occasion, but was

actually ennui and so

not very emotional after all.

Just another excuse, I like

those too. Our town

was built near if not quite

under water

and when we weren’t trying

so hard to vanish

into it we rode, three

to a whale, abandoning

unmade beds behind us.

A lot of soldiers were more

handsome than would have been

tactful to note, and on a secret

dolphin assignment. A former

beau boated by, dragging behind

him the net of his new demeanor

—to be spared’s not too much

to ask for till it is—but I can’t

get used to the flying fish staring

me down, and how can anything

possibly add up when we hear

a dog barking this far out at sea.