Cento from Realpoetik

Past the grime-caked windows
the sound of a piano
from the briers. Sour, bitter

music. Myron has a stub of charcoal.
Far off, the front door bangs.
He eats his rations, & after,

tea. Wreak after wreck. Month,
one hour, another. The wilderness in you
a country. It stretched its rationality out:

a pitched roof to stop rain ruining, guide our
I-don't-know-who-I-am-right-now
at first; & then the eyes adjust.

When eternally the earth
up against the window,
alone in a blue vacuum,

curled in hurling its
smog over glass songs,
spills into my skin & paints my veins, even

thoughts stern on the faces of sailors.