The Ringmaster

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The first ring is contained in a small box no bigger than your fingernail.

We keep it on a shelf with minor planets and constellations ­-the beasts,

people, sawdust - the random arrangement of atoms and circumstances

that make up the world. I once knew a woman who believed that every

moment of every life was moving inexorably toward the same vanishing

point–the myriads moving on a giant canvas toward an invisible pinhole

somewhere in the middle distance. The stars continue to burn. The seas

pay homage to the sky. The brittle shards of days under your fingernails.

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                 Marc Chagall’s Lament

- Aleksandrovskiy ulitsa, Moscow, 1921

Every morning is the same – I visit the market,

pull red-scaled fish from melting ice, come home

smelling like rollmop herring. Bella complains

of finding scales in the bathroom, begs me

to take a commission in Paris or Berlin,

to leave Moscow to the proles and the Reds.

I have taken to painting giant roosters

and doe-eyed cows, since the meat

and poultry board awarded me a stipend –

barely enough to keep body and soul together -

though the meat is welcome and always delicious,

and who can afford to be tender in these times?

I paint, constantly – my studio awash

with brilliantine colors and wildlife,

vermillion days and red parachutes,

heavenly triangulations, bright scales of color

floating quietly to earth.

                                         Mass

In the dream, it’s always raining – a deluge, rushing through

the narrowing canyon towards the impossible bowl, the size

of a city, the swirling sinkhole sucking black oceans into the

belly of the earth. On the hill above, the red cathedral, miles

high, melds with the rock. Armies of red ants mass, writhing

and twitching like people waking from a dream - pour slowly

into the cataract – reluctant Cardinals of the flooded Church.