I like your eyes. Their startling weather
like the bract of the bougainvillea, a leaf
turned suddenly dawn, peach
or cloud, drawn out from the sun
and dark water. No. Your eyes are arid
and say nothing. I am looking at
you. I don’t know what I’m thinking.
You look at me—what, you say; nothing
I say. No. Tell me something. I like it
when suddenly your hands are on my shoulders
when I had intended to get up, get
a beer, and walk around looking
out the windows at the bougainvillea
and be startled by it again, standing
against the dry blue sky doing nothing
and instead I close my eyes and yours
are in the pillow and around and I, when
they become still and sure, am their
object. No. Why. Only
I see your eyes for a second
first, then again, your eyes first
again, a rush of brine—they are blue
by the ocean, blue-green in the woods; sometimes
they are gray. No. The bougainvillea
sways. I like it when you walk up to me
then wait as if waiting for me to say
something—what, I say. Tell me something.
Fine. Your eyes are species
of spiritual matter, telling objects I could
take. I would treat them
kindly. They are fact. I feel
I need them to take me out of
this, our terrible time. No, they are not all
there is to paradise, for nowhere
in them can I find its reddest
tissue, nowhere this frail, intense
fire. Or yes, as, at what depth
I cannot say, they pick up, like
satellites do, what there is
behind me of contingency
and carry it forward, that very
palpable world, or light, or lighten it, like some
pitch pine bent almost prone
to the dune you see
to be a cresting, green-spumed wave
lifted above the sand by methodical
wind, practically to breaking.