Three Poems

Diorama

Stairs

Beneath the banister,along the wall, two racks of shoes

and a tall black grandfather clock.Its face reads eight o’clock.

It chimes. A wooden womanwalks a small mechanical plank.

A row of portraits scales the stairs,each larger than the last.

Bedroom

Greens and yellows. A man leanshard on the bathroom door.

Covered with a ringed quilt,the bed is meticulously made:

too many pillows. Matching lampslight the matching nightstands.

His hand jostles the knob.Everything is in its place.

Kitchen

In the center of the room,a table left in ruin —

a meal heaped on three plates,a fourth shattered on the floor.

Milk trickles from a tiny mugonto the tile. A dog

with different colored eyeslicks cautiously along the grout.

Hallway

Down the narrow corridor,more portraits, a glass case

lined with porcelain dolls,a runner leading toward a door

latched against the dark. A lonelight glows beneath the dolls.

They float above their stands,ordered in descending rows.

Bathroom

The vanity reflectsthe floral trimming. Violets.

A woman, sitting with her backto the door, hides her eyes.

Behind a half-drawn curtainin a clawfoot tub, the children wait —

propped on its lip like cherubs — here,where no one will cry out.

The Lover

presses his ear against the thinnest wallof his apartment. In the empty spacebetween, he hears a static like the sea’s.

Past that — above the television’s talkshe always falls asleep to — a loud clocktallies the gradual hours.                He waits untilshe rouses for a drink, washes her face,removes her lenses. Then he pulls away,paces the hall again.            The Cabernethe bartered from a girl with scarlet lipsjust west of the canal — outside of Lille —lies uncorked on the counter. Overhead,the fan wheels freely in the dark.                    The dead,he thinks, must make for patient lovers. Heshould go to bed.        This late, the distant ships —the quiet chore of their unmooring — soundto him like her when no one is around,

when, loosening her robe by slow degrees —as he unloops and coils his belt now — shepresses her ear firmly against the wall.

Advent

His mother must have looked away,the reckless boy who teeters onthe railing of the balcony.

Beneath him, the congregation singsa final hymn in a minor key.

Above, the oculus, gold leaf,the folded wings of Gabriel.

Impossible to say what luredhim from his seat — the choir’s appealor the angel’s feet?            What is his nameso we might call him, safely, down —this child who balances between

what cannot and what can be seen,the martyrs and the marbled ground?