In the moment between day’s
end and settling into sleep,
things that have broken
vanish in a glowing sphere
around the brass Victorian
lamp my neighbor Ed gave us
as a wedding present, turned
on his lathe in the falling-down barn
behind our houses, where I
rambled through alfalfa and clover
in the pulse of crickets, under miles
of spilling stars encircling me
like the vision of paradise that day
I felt life leave my dog and saw him
run gladly through the endless green,
his spine harboring a bullet. Notice how
I have avoided speaking of the day
we met. I am tired of complaining
about your black gaze. You were
the dream girl become flesh.
You made a lamp out of a wine bottle
filled with lentils, split peas, garbanzos,
for the beside table I built of plywood
and glued cork. We were just starting out.
