Roadside, I read signs in the snowdrift,
in the lamppost, in the ocean’s jelly peaks,
in the olives, in their pits shining in my hand,
or at home, decoding the milk spreading into the tea,
the lemon, skin unbroken but pockmarked, coded,
all year, I heard ringtones in the silent night
or silent nights in the ringtones until,
I dreamed the fish that jumps from tide,
that fish with a jaw like a pipe smoker’s jaw
spoke the message: lose the sign you are alone,
parsing arrows from parentheses, from bird v’s,
marking hourglass shapes in shower steam,
eyes up
eyes up

__

Reading Tristan Tzara's "Note on Poetry" I was struck by this sentence, Knowing how to recognize and follow the traces of strength we are waiting for, tracks which are everywhere, in an essential language of numbers, engraved on crystals, on seashells, on rail tracks, in glass, inside snow, and, of course, I like prophetic talking fish.