You gotta roll with it, 

the other dancers told her, speaking of the landing 

after a leap, & when she didn’t roll just right, broke 

  

her next-to-little toe. 

La Bayadère: Nikiya in the kingdom of shades, 

 already forgetting the world above, her descent, 

everything around her unnamed— 

is there anywhere names enough 

 for a hundred shades of shade— her language failing her, as it fails us, 

 when we behold 

the unprecedented. 

​

 *** 

​

The now & the not-yet, a preacher Sunday called this world 

 & the next, & in this now 

Gregg Allman’s just passed into the not-yet. 

You gotta roll with it, he said of his habit. 

​

At last I’ve a word for my friend’s text, three months sober! 

but I got a Disney cruise next week with my daughters… 

​

A word for myself too, 

as mine’s putting me to bed on the living room floor: 

spreads a little blanket across my face 

& chest, pats me night night daddy— 

​

her serious babyfatted face there 

then not there. 

I’m worried I’m already forgetting these moments, 

as she, all twenty months of her,

 

with no word for tomorrow, daily forgets her improvised

half-words 

 & nonce syllables 

for this world as she passes 

into our language. 

​

 *** 

​

This now, gone as quickly as her shining face 

as she turns to Mickey Mouse adventures on the iPad-- 

have you seen this? The Clubhouse is a dismembered Mickey, 

​

mouse head for the main house, a hand for the garage, 

a leg for some unidentifiable purpose, 

 perfect mascot 

for a land in which countless have had their limbs scattered. 

We don’t have one Orpheus, we have legion, 

 & their names 

are being scattered by the years. 

Last weal-minute of sun, then it’s gone, 

bloodmeal sky 

in which swallows underdog the twilit body of God, 

 but we swing by ourselves. Someone begins to throw tatters of dark cloth upon the day’s face, as if through the fenestella of a martyrium 

 to the saint’s bones below. Like kerchiefs thrown from a departing ship 

to the waving crowd on the dock, 

 no one sure who will vanish first.