for Matt
She says he spent a life contemplating white.
I hear this about yellow too—the white in yellow
is even more difficult.
I like streets that cross into one another.
This might be a way of making a mountain.
I have only one stairway to climb down from.
The map of Queens does not allow for descent.
I prefer to hit a bay with my foot—
to wonder over the edges as I meet them.
The year doesn’t turn the way poets think it does.
It’s the day that turns and the hour and the minute
and suddenly the house plants have given up.
I was certain we would have our accidents.
To know the shape of a room is to find the mistakes in it.
Any space will want to break us in.
We think the room turns itself to fit us.
The peeling wall is most like skin isn’t it?
I think the white that I want is not at all like my wall.
A tree is never only outside the house and
the wall is the thing you will eventually ask in.
Here now is a registry for light.