THE POSSIBLE                                     Asheville Poetry Review, 1998

                            I

Start with the eyes in portraits

the young artist says. From there

you can go in any direction.

I think of Yeats who sometimes

started in the middle of poems

because he liked a multiplicity of choices.

To begin at the start foreshadows an end,

and the end, as in death, is complete,

but the center has neither

determining points. It is more like the park on Sunday.

                            II

In the picnic basket is a bottle

of Chianti, Russian Rye Bread,

Feta Cheese and thick slices of salami.

The chaise lounge holds me,

while ducks on the cloud-clotted pond

scoot across the frizzed water;

the bread in my mouth an occasional

knickknack on my tongue.

                          III

Imagine the starry phosphorescence

our decay initiates,

how in the dusk of burial

what seemed irretrievably lost     

assumes new life,

the body becoming a bright empire.