orders reversed

[joel]

A water-colored, tall, Italianate
canal at twenty-nine past ten o’clock
past noon— A graceful arc and streetside dock
and fluid glassy folds of passionate
Venetian light that glaze elaborate
designs and never mind the dowdy frock
this lightless parlor wears as if to mock
the painted souvenirs that decorate
its night abandoned space— I sit alone
and rhyme alone and count alone and verse
alone and sweat the August eve and stare
at paper where all inks their chores disown
and dim themselves, a fade and chortle curse:
black words dispersed in black till only there.