The capitol dome, gleaming
under the hard aspersion
of a fall sun. We watch

three small birds
perch on a wire, conversational
in posture. Then one

after the other after the other,
they spread their wings alar,
and dive, plunging

into the shadow slat city streets
like actors accepting applause,
or like young men

descending into memory.
Diving with a strange
composure, a formal control.

There is a woman in Denver,
the one from all the stories.
A woman in Perugia, the one

with the money and who
whispered threats in her
sleep. There is a woman

in Pittsburgh, the ideal who
strolls through dreams, and
a woman in Nebraska, the

one with the legendary hips.
There is a girl in Virginia,
Always too young, but

so precocious; the sapling.
Another handful strewn about
on coasts unknown, mysterious

as apparitions, archipelagoes
of lapsed desire. The peculiar
unity of intimacies, failed.

The lunar ghost has come out
to entice us all with spare,
liquid dreams of dying,

and the dome is losing its luster.
It is the third such dome
to occupy this hill.

Our edifices thread the
interstices, and then burn to
rubble, even the grandest.

It is the hour the office workers
emerge, squinting against
the day’s waning glory.

The capitol fills with the sound
of their departure, a low grade
fission, a whinny of pleasure.

The birds are back on their perch,
watching. They are birds who remain
through the long winter.