Quinces

1.
...just as the poem
runs rippling through the poem and
coincides, so
doing, with its
inherent momentum, so the
quince, catching on
its

pinched syllable, rounds to its
mass, decks itself in
a

burst girdle of
gold
foliage.

2.
nothing, you’d
noted, that
doesn’t happen twice, but only at the

bow’s
according.

3.
beating, as they do, abrasive, one
against another in an
un-
remitting mistral, these
plump, pendulous mammillaires know
no
quarter if not the
notes themselves, their
deep
refl uent receptacles.

4.
where else, though, would the
quinces go, would you
your-

self, if not into
those

vibratory under-
worlds: there where the breath, at last,
might fi nd
umbrage.

5.
...off ered unto no
known
deity, these battered
rococo vessels, come September, swell
putrescent. find, then, the
key, the

chord mute enough to record such
numena before
the

ground thuds redundant under so much
broken
token.