on the back of the hand, its soft white light
fl oods shoulder fi ngers pencil note pad
and desk surface, notes on old soiled scraps of paper,
the Hölderlin, the glasses case, the black bowl
by Blue Corn, the Hokusai Fishermen Draw in Their Nets
While a Poet Meditates in a Distant Hut,
the Porsche ad, The City Porsche, cut out
of an old Time years ago, a blue-silver 914
driven by a blonde up a hill in San Francisco,
the 0.5 liter earthenware coff ee mug,
the drafts of a poem, "migraine's fancy
stitching" a phrase at the corner of the eye,
piles of old letters -- the latest from Helle --
a lucite box of dry fl ies, clippings of reviews
of books wanted, a lump of turquoise and
a piece of white granite veined with green
from the Snowy Range in Wyoming,
white glue, a pen light disassembled
its batteries exposed, a bit of paper folded so
that a quote from Pope sits up, and crawling across
all this comes the black cat, Christmas, so much
admired by the family, cautiously lowering
and lengthening her body, one glossy paw
testing for a spot to sleep in, settling instead
for the window shelf, hind quarters on a New York Review,
front quarters, and cheek, on an old rabbit pelt,
a paw curled over her eyes.