A Collection of Weather

There is going to be time to be webs,
the starred weathervane, plenty of time to be
bronze, or the machine that ruptures the picture
into a puzzle, to be famine that coaxes angels

out of their haze, so much time to be snail shells,
lupine seeds, fragments of exoskeletons, examined
and pinned, rustling at the past. Our records
misplaced in creases of wind.

We spent a lot of time wishing the cut pear
could return to itself without help, that its sections
might remember each other. We were devastated
that parts of us were loose, that a shape

could not survive without a shift.
We spent a lot of time waiting for the city to lift,
we spent a lot of time wishing for money
and paint and someone to take care of.

We wished ink into words, words to a mouth,
mouth to extended hand, that someone could not arrive
and depart in the same moment.
We wished for a collection of weather:

thunderclouds fastened beneath glass,
wind swirling in mason jars –
you wish I could remember feathers
without the bird cage, I wish you could fall asleep

without the chandelier on.
It is hard to achieve the quiet of an eyelash
or the swiftness of a fantail.
I wish for a cabinet full of color.

I wish for my ghost to bump into yours
when we cannot mutter about darkness
when you cannot play an instrument
to invoke anguish, when there is nothing

left to tarnish, or to taint