Across from the observatory,

under cream cloud, what is it

death does when it undoes–the gradual unravel of a brain,

or a switch's flick to click off thought?

Before me, I love the muddy canal,

love the fact that before Dante

enters Hell he meets a leopard.

I see leaves and a giant lamp

made to resemble the moon. Hung above

the observatory. Clouds pull in more clouds.

How easy it is to glance and see nothing. How easy to spend

our time puzzling how to spend our time.

Young boys run past, serious for their bodies,

and in a breath of heat and sweat they're gone.

Night comes for the ten thousandth time, sky growing

muddy with cloud, light squeezed out.

Are you there, a man says into his phone.

A magnificent storm is coming.