Seen From A Distance

What is “seen from a distance” are two young workmen repairing a fence, a biker by a pool, the bay of Cadiz, Ovid in exile, a boat drifting without sails. And there is much that is seen up close: Rilke’s panther, a cop with a face liked cooked ham, three dying horses, a ghost with guilt.

The cello’s sound from deep
within our house of innocence
and purpose swells to something darker
than death’s rattle, something deeper
than the echoes of our joy

The poems are divided into nine sections: art, sex, history, animals, memories, New Mexico, love, death and poetry.

Akhmatova says
that after we are gone
there’s simply nothing
nothing
and then asks whose face is that
against the winter pane?
It is only you, once warm,
now trapped in streaks of ice
against the glass.