Awareness was intermittent. It sputtered.
        And some of the time you were seen
                asleep. So trying to appear whole

                you asked of the morning: Is he free
        who is not free from pain? It started to rain
a particulate alloy of flecked grey; the dogs

wanted out into their atlas of smells; to pee
        where before they had peed, and might
                well pee again — though it isn’t

                a certainty. What is? In the set,
        called Phi, of all possible physical worlds
resembling this one, in which, at time t,

was written ‘ Is he free who is not free —’
        and comes the cramp. Do you want
                to be singular, onstage, praised,

                or blamed? I watched a field of sun-
        flowers dial their ruddy faces toward
what they needed and was good. At noon

they were chalices upturned, gilt-edged,
        and I lived in that same light but felt
                alone. I chose to phone my brother,

                over whom I worried, and say so.
        He whispered, lacked affect. He’d lost
my record collection to looming debt. I

forgave him — through weak connections,
        through buzz and oceanic crackle —
                immediately, without choosing to,

                because it was him I hadn’t lost; and
        later cried myself to sleep. In that village
near Dijon, called Valley of Peace,

a pond reflected its dragonflies
        over a black surface at night, and
                the nuclear reactor’s far-off halo

                of green light changed the night sky
        to the west. A pony brayed, stamping
a hoof on inlaid stone. The river’s reeds

lovely, but unswimmable. World death
        on the event horizon; vigils with candles
                in cups. I’ve mostly replaced my records,

                and acted in ways I can’t account for.
        Cannot account for what you’re about
to do. We should be held and forgiven.