On a calm river, only a temporary
architect of water, old, exiled
from some cold nation, in
white-gown, gothic, she
draws with her knife
the slowest sparks
of herself toward
an imagined fire,
hardly believing
in failure, failing.
Apt tomb haunted
by wasps, last year’s
wasp nest, this old skull
of an owl is a bleak future,
delicate, a mere meaningless-
ness of last month’s newspapers.