Vermeer's Theory Of Light    

Here is a string tied to a sun,
tulips erupt from every mouth.
Tell again the drained music
of a fountain—
Earlier, this was earlier...

Yellow leaves on a yellow street,
a past soggy with sunlight.
The needle trembles on its pin,
here is a string tied to a sun—
The mirror gone out like a candle.

The Novice    

Now the city's body is an ark: the river
bends back on itself.

Water, stained with mercury, climbs the gutters.
The red morning sky vaguely patriotic.

I have learned to resemble myself: colors
mixed with milk. On the night-stand

a glass of water grows small white spots.
It rained deeply.

Between streetlights, beneath an arch I cast two
shadows or, 'how I began to fall in love'.

An arm across her larynx: the fingers, fan-like,
birds in flight, they stutter, misspelling her name.

It is dark in the funnel of the horizon.
Not stars, not stars appear.