I come to this park to train
for the camera, be remembered
by my eyes, powerhouse cheeks
laughing easily at nothing at all
--work up muscle tone, more sweat
till my glossy, rock-hard face
smoothly closes one eye
and still hold up the other

--lovers speed these things, testing
as if they'd never need both eyes
for tears, for the darkness
the exploding flash and listing bench
--they find one another
the way a weightlifter stops
to add something heavier on each end
--it takes a second

a split-second that explodes
as best it can, sometimes
someone's there, sometimes just stars
sometimes the eye breaking apart.

Then nudging the cold engine block
he picks an apple, pleased
with its color, with leaning
on a branch where his elbow
feels the small fire, then waits

for the lingering and almost daybreak
whose shadow would hold up the sun
half wax, half wing, half
the hood resting on one shoulder
--what did he lose under this visor

under the iron breastplate
the tower no longer on horseback
and the slow oil leak that carves
one drop from another

--every bolt already clamped
the way stalactites, stone by grieving stone
--every drop falling motionless
strikes another as rain once formed mountains
and trembling creeks still helpless
on the ground --he picks a wrench

by its size as if it had ripened
deep inside some cave where rain
had never stopped and he leans
half spilling over the dark wall
half tightening its endless water.

That covers half the Earth with goodbye
half some toy sea once horses
and struggling --exactly noon

and your heart too is salty
still learning to count, to make
a circle from hooves and towers

--it's crazy! you lift this beach
to cool it, be the fog again
the breathing in, never breathing out

--what you touch is not sand
not this wide open pailful
but the overpowering numbers

--with iron bells and you track for skies
the way tears call back
moving from one place to another

and the heart you carry inside
fills with these damp chimes
with spurs and bringing together.