and glass. But the spiral moments of fluting
on bricks show, alternately, that nothing need
be lasting, yet be true. A note about fretworks,
flicking down walls: they are even more like paint–
ings, in fade and illuminations; holding references at
bay. You can almost breathe the light of what you see .
Brian O'Neill
REVISE, REVISE
When we cross Colfax Avenue, it's deep, hard
walking; mother counts our bus fare in the alcove
of the Palais Royal; her cracked hands guard
my face from snow: I should revise, revise, but love
refuses like a small town to change a single street,
so I hear her voice above the shower
at my father's house, calling us to eat,
the eggs poached soft, coffee ready to drink just now.
If this poem's not for you, reader, or anyone else,
if the bad washer in the shower head is a version
of love, gratuitous, irregular, a hiss
thrumming in the walls, then another version
refuses to leave without you, already late for mass,
her long suffering frown bent on our salvation.
