The Myth of the Eternal Return
The river sinks beneath our love
for green, for golf.
The world’s southernmost islands lap
and lap. Their copra shrinks.
Stomachs shrink.
Australia burns. We love their babies in our zoos,
the lottery that draws their names.
[My mother is a vector,
a mirror snapped shut and dropped into a drawer.]
A fixed point releases waves to the next promontory
of boat or car rusting in the tidal yard.
Silt bilges in matching coffee cups—
a mailbox flag is up. A pair of sunglasses
bends time.
[A bull’s eye mirror, a house key dropped
into a drawer.]
We like a map, the fingertip-sized lake,
lines that line us up on ramps wherein the myth
returns to hum: we feel the sway
of waves in every cubic yard we beat into the ground.
Above the harbor, above the earth, we take our shot.
[I move my mother with my mind. First I magnify my eyes.]
Love, I saw you there.
