Twice the raccoon attempts its nest,
her scaffolding slides away on a kind wind,
before gathering back into the rock’s hollow
shared with skunks and rivulets.
I am finally permanent and still
water refuses to keep my image. Suppose
my planetary wanderings do not subside. Suppose,
in this rigidity, this paltry wish for gardens
to die and come back different, suppose, Lord,
sick with boredom, that quality I’ve come to recognize
as singular, you finally decide motion lends
a certain excitement to water yet to form a canyon.
And having spoken, your fingers compass the quiet
world and wait for the sputter of change
on the other side of your hands. It’s as if
there never was a voice spurring
change through will, willing the multiplicity
of Animalia, of pollen to lie down in earth.
Nick Visconti is a writer living in Brooklyn with an artist, and a cat.
