Now uselessness casts its shadowy ligature
across If only. Now—never mind how
briefly—conquest almost seems not to have,
from the start, been the only color,
each defeat
a stepping-stone across a stream whose
name, maybe, should have mattered more,

*

but didn’t. It’s late. It’s dark out. Crush
of hollyhock and lantana, and flawed
intention. Bells, as if meant
to remind us. Clumsy
eloquence of a body faltering; fumbling rhythmically.
—Look at me. Little ocean, getting farther away.
Now I touch at once both everything and nothing.