My body’s held by a mirror between Vega and Venus. 
By this room. The parasol moon,  
its ten cold ribs bearing the furniture of evening.  

Rainlight and nightsounds in the trees down Wagram.  
Sleep dissolves like slate tiles on the roof. My fever’s 
placed on the table, a vase of tulips, each cut with a handsaw. 

From the balcony, I hear the radios of garbage trucks,
picture countless steps to Montmartre  
waiting like plinths in the dawn for feet. At a window,

a woman lights a cigarette, touches her face. 
I marry her voice as it takes the Lord’s name to the street below. 
Slip it on my finger like lilacs losing petals in a softer rain.     
   
We grow old together as waves in the dark 
when no one calls to them, and they turn   
like the wind’s pages toward nothing.           

Some things grow backward toward their beauty. 
Spring’s no more a season—the lindens move,   
as if in rain. The rain begins, as if on trees.