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Caught in the calendar's scaffolding
there is a brittle light the likes of which
I like to pretend I've never seen before
days without name or place in time
millenia of uncomfortable evolving
done by the pigeon on the sill
the way she shortens her neck to be warm

all that terrible effort to nestle in an ice age, dance
in the ballroom of the aftermath
to know nothing of the bones gone before
then to know it all at once
too heavily and too late
to die trying or for lack of trying
as orange and yellow shades
hostle one another for place
in the kingdom of dying color

in a map of the body
found under a refrigerator
and in hands from sunlit porches
getting ready to wear their parchment
which will take shape
and then take shapes away

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