HEART THREAD 214, 215, and 216

214.

Sometimes finish something be enough
to begin with

‘a balanced aquarium’

Antin explained when we were kids

so much I learned from him I’ll never
admit

plants feed fish excrete feed plants

oxygen out of nowhere

only the sun needs helium

at the other end of its cosmos last
dream’s gentlest touch

thrill the way a bird does or morning
light

mockingbird on the bridge in rain

where herons often glide from pond to
bay

I’m gasping for breath airless in
Gaza

to see me suffer puts the leaves to
sleep.

215.

Night stuff thick

ankles of consciousness

slow drag a thickened broth

a cake of beef fat offered to birds

there are days music will not listen

means that no one hears

after a month on the sea it is hard
to be anybody else

say it with your hands the way the
night

is religion only something other
people do

glamor of the ivory corpus constantly
reminds

once there was a place where these
things mean

thank God we have to make our own.

216.

Walk over there and meet myself
departing

signs of death I cannot find my shoes

lost my heart in the Rockaways

began to think that love was made of
skin

cathedrals walk beside you when you go

I flew over the Hadramawt and Mars
looked back

the meaningless politeness of the
desert rock

the empty cup I offer to my friends

how little I’ve given, how much
proposed

littoral birds the afikomen found at
last

set me my place at the table near the
door

sometimes the sight of food makes me
despair.

ROBERT
KELLY