The Building

The light in the highest window
like a picture in pieces
we can constitute without
meaning though it is
unnatural, architecture and light
falls through the spaces
as through an elevator shaft, used
up before the bottom, as though
it were the beams of an empty ski
cathedral. We can find
what we want to see in the details,
a wooden button. Hangs
like a round familiar goal, her fingers,
her hair, I don’t even have
to tell you. She was wearing

gold, that was the first time
her teeth flashed for a second, slick
as an animal under the water, momentary
face of her emotion, as quickly re-immersed.

What is a time step? How much can it hold?
In my imagination it’s easy. The wood
creaks under my weight, I squint
in the warm sunlight, turn, seemingly everywhere
looking for her though
she can’t be here. Smell
of my clothing, formal in the hard
light, the sound
of my heel as it falls on simulated stone.
Wholeness and pieces. Not pure. You can ask
me but now I’ve begun to say
just about all of it, so bright
and forward, construction
music, and in tone.