from The Next Clause

FOR"I'm leaving you," she said, "for you make me sick." But 

of course she didn't say that. She thought the "for"; she admired 

its elegant distance, the way it's wedged like an iron strut 

between result and cause, the way it's almost "far," and dire 

as a raised eyebrow. She liked the way it sounds like speaking 

through a cardboard paper towel tube, using it for a megaphone: 

not loud, but strong, all those compacted years shoving 

out the other end, as if she were certain she wanted to be alone. 

OR 

The first four bars of Beethoven's sixth, the Pastorale, 

repeat and repeat, always with variation: or, and or, 

something to violate expectations, not fully antiphonal, 

only an oar dipped into the measure to make an interior 

swirl, pulling the craft slightly to the side, yet ahead, 

still: little cupped trails alongside to mark where 

the mind turned, questions were asked, and shed, 

before moving on, nothing that can't be repaired. 

NOR 

As a flower sheds petal after petal, as further tests 

strip away one after another of the last hopes for a cure, 

as a person shakes into the waste bin all her cigarettes 

and goes down the street not knowing who she is, the pure 

air of saints is achieved by abandonment: Jesus in the garden 

alone, cold moon disappearing, Buddha at the morning star, 

mind emptied of its snarl of ignorance. Neither to harden 

against loss, nor to welcome it. To let it be who you are.