(Lost Aspect)

I can’t imagine it since the arson.
I look—rubbled church, melted tiffany
glass, the whole block gone, the Mississippi
high this season, the rice paper parson
retired in the town’s senior garrison.
I watch it frayed by the lithophane
of hoarfrost, dim lamps outside the orphaned
shops, pull up my quilt, making a parcel
to mail to my dream selves (hemophiliac
boy who hates rain, maid on a ship mast,
fox running on the freeway).  How it hurts
to hope they will fight over the mail key.
Please seers, insure the tiffany glass—
as we share a view of what is certain.

             *
When you pulled your hair from your brush, you tossed it
out the upstairs window, “for birds,” you said. While
groping through the clematis vine, I felt no
arrow or echo.