WEBVTT

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A poem called "The Villas
of Andrea Palladio"

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as occasioned by a boat ride
down the Brenta from [? Padua ?]

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to Venice, visiting these great
villas and coming out onto

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the lagoon in the poem
here follows the trajectory

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on several levels at once.

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There, once again, at
the world's very edge,

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you're pointing out
palaces, aren't you?

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Tapping that viscous
glass, holding them,

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the immemorabile, at the
tip of your lacquered nail.

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There, just there,
where the barge pivots,

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seems to station in the
midst of its own vapors.

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"See it?" you ask.

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I see your lacquered nail,
its wavering reflection,

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follow it across those
stalled waters, pier.

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pilaster, fronton,
the pure scale

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of so much hallucinatory mass.

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Not even a hedgerow
to break the effect,

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not even a stray dog, the
ragged line of its leash.

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Null, in so many numbers,
isn't this what you mean?

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This, that's meant?

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Blown mirrors, the
void in which, turgid,

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our viscera would glow?

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Among the room, rooms,
the words empty--

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spacious-- enough
to withhold us?

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Isn't this, that's
nothing, what the cells--

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wedging-- would jam?

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Billows about you, a
scarf of clouds, pigeons.

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Yes, a sudden air of
apparent bewilderment.

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Tell, tell me to myself,
before even you get

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swept into that wash
of sounds, the lagoon,

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already, in a sputter of tugs,
marked by so many rigorously

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aligned pilings.

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Yes, before our
own breath hardens

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about its very words, and
our bodies, once again,

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beat against the muslin of
their veiled reflections.

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