The Mirror
—for Richard Howard
We dream of two dragons
conflicted in a wilderness.
It is only the spatial instance
of a luckless accidental order
that says “horse” rather than “house”
but also
says ‘horse’
rather than ‘aqueduct.’
These, all in the same moment,
spontaneous or
immeasurably meek.
As if under a cloak
of nearness or inevitability
like two suns become one.
It is not belief but
an attraction
to an experience we hunger after,
here and now, an almost
self-annihilating
difference become common, beyond
fear.
If you have changed water to wine,
you will soon
turn wine into tears.
