Red throat, expel today the substitute: the stone. The boy is back from underground today. The boy has grown. The undigested breach in yellow glory from my mouth. Then blast me nine days’ anvil flight away from wide- wayed earth.

– after Joseph Stella This bridge—I came here painfully young. What did I do at a blue stoplight? I wished for that light to mean I was asleep. To know I slept and marvel at that least illumination.           Cathedral window bridge; the frame backlit and black. All that apparatus—necessary— layered on the air.