Embroidered with tigers!
Lined satin-red
and the man
in the photograph
wears them
with ease—
I want a paintbrush
in hand
and his same
sun-squint
and spilt drinks
and short nights
spent on deck—
that hair,
those hands,
those sea-spangled,
horn-rimmed spectacles
he wears honestly,
to better see.

Enormous boulder in Itoshima
you stand recently freed
in your circle of spiritual space
in your forest of bamboo trees.
Did you sense the purple-colored cloud
above her head
when Empress Jingu visited
in the year two hundred one?
Can you feel today each bow,
each arm spread wide,
each breath held specially,
released specially
for you? Back home
where no great stone
lives close
we feel you still.

Once Holy
Roman Empire,
long opulent,
now spent—

these Ruins
of the Baths
of Antoninus

sun-bathe
beaten soft
by centuries
of sun and wind and rain.

A bird’s nest
high in an arch
and the sound
of waves—

some signs of life remain
in this thermae Āfricae

in this lost country
of Carthage

deep set
by the sea.

Push off the wall
and the water
pulls me long—
Where’s my daughter?
Oh asleep.
And somehow
I forgot her
in this green light
so late. Summer
and the dark sky
presses hotter
on the surface
of this pool
though my face
as I lift it wet
feels cool again
and I plunge
straight forward—
sleek the length,
soft and streaky
as a comet.

When Venus
born from foam
fully grown
steps to the sand
sun-hot
she stops—
a step back
into surf
and again
the green waves surge
and a rose scent
sweeps against
her skin
still wet
and a clamshell
cream and pink
curves up again
from the sea
to tenderly cup
her feet.