Intrusive Beauty. Joseph J. Capista

I’ve been,

      Then touch the spots I’ll never be.

      The largest bell ever made,

      The Great Bell of Dhammazedi,

      is lost at the bottom of a river.

       History of the Inevitable

      Fire wants to be ash, which wants

      a bucket to hold it with unseeping certainty.

      The bucket wants to look like the moon,

      which it does some nights, while the moon

      wants to be the storefront window, full

      of something. But the window’s coats

      are tired of town’s dull hooks and long

      to be pitchforks, which long to be trees.

      The trees envy the slow-moving cow

      beneath their boughs, and the cow wants

      an engine to propel it though the sharp

      fence where the man rests, wondering

      how he will ever go to his desire when

      the universe so needs his tending hand.

       Domestic Intelligence

      Best trash this tulip spray

      lest, come A.M., drooped

      blossoms drop,

      lest tabletop become

      again some variegated

      scattergram

      impelling you to measure,

      plot those points chance

      and beauty intersect,

      lest gorgeous red-gold

      nonchalance grace

      faience eggcups,

      patinaed grapefruit spoons

      you set while upstairs

      wife and daughters slept,

      lest over salmon crème fraîche

      and warm pear tarte tatin,

      your mind threads petals

      back to florets, transfixed

      all day by what remains

      detached yet correlates.

      Best nix this vase entirely.

      Avert. Preclude. Forestall.

      Best obviate astonishment

      at each blossom’s way

      of falling into just-the-place.

      As if you’ll ever understand.

       The Beautiful Things of the Earth Become More Dear as They Elude Pursuit

      Another wave rolls over me before

      I clear its crest. I haven’t surfed since June.

      Foam lifts me, holds me, sings me back toward shore.

      Sunrise grows a little smaller, further

      away. I’m sheathed in leaky neoprene.

      Another wave rolls over me before

      I catch, then lose, my breath: the atmosphere

      and sea gleam mica, glint their pinks and greens.

      Foam lifts me, holds me, sings me back toward shore

      as something flickers in a distant trough;

      lit windblown water droplets—jewels—they shine.

      Another wave rolls over me. Before

      my eyes, a distant skimmer nears and spears

      a silverside. It’s gorgeous, then it’s gone.

      Foam lifts me, holds me, sings me back toward shore.

      “Your poem,” said Danny, “needs more beauty. More.”

      I paddle, touch the water to touch sun.

      Another wave rolls over me before

      I’m lifted, held, I’m sung right back to shore.

       Exit Wound

       John, 1975–1995

      Your knees that afternoon were caked with dust

      and other matter—life’s particulate

      remains unstuck from his apartment floor.

      We spent three hours searching for the place.

      And when your finger found the dimple just

      beneath the sill (it ricocheted) I watched

      your face, all day a tangled knot of pain,

      grow slack. The face I saw was his, or his

      age nine at Gettysburg beside the storm-

      felled tree from which he yanked a musket ball.

      He bit the slug like on TV and broke

      his tooth. He cried. He was a boy. We knelt

      a moment, touched the bullet, touched what now

      tears headlong through our lives. He was a boy.

       Thirtysomething Blues

       Shannon

      It’s not the risk we mind, but consequence.

      To do without at twenty-two was “in.”

      Yet now we’ve had, to have not stings. We wince

      at what, in younger days, we sought: the chance

      of sloughing all we never meant to own.

      It’s not the risk we mind, but consequence.

      The job, car loan, the mortgage on the house:

      the things we need are things, not dreams but plans.

      How once we’ve had, to have not stings. We wince

      at possibility should it yield less,

      no lamb and cherries, nightly glass of wine.

      It’s not the risk, mind you, it’s consequence.

      We’ll quit! We’ll walk! We’ll move to France!

      Responsible adults know my refrain:

      Yes, once you’ve had, to have not stings. I wince

      mid-concert when you say, “I’ll sing like this

      someday.” Those notes won’t pay the taxman, Shan.

      It’s not the risks we mind, but consequences,

      as once we’ve had—we wince—to have not stings.

       SOWEBO

       Southwest Baltimore

      By the time the boy’s tooth chips and bloody

      hair mats his scalp cradled beside the spokes,

      which spin and clack, this does not matter.

      Not the curbside assault, not the battery.

      What matters here is the grace with