A long silk
is pulled quickly
over my upturned palms

The unsigned architecture of loneliness
is becoming taller, finding a way farther
above the horizontal flowering
of the Cold War, the peonies

A day too large for the summer, standing up
out of the bus lanes, puzzled on its face
like the miniaturist who becomes famous

The near past and the near future are poor,
with no accession of hands, no bright legs—
useless, untender absences with bronze torsos.

The frail smoke and virtues of the season blind 
us, almost with hands, and which of us can instruct 
the other now? I will have to find your body