The page is hot.

But you and I will coax some cool from it.

Begin with the sun –

No, begin with the moon,

The moon’s sweet Earth dawn,

The blue sphere gliding between two desolations,

Flooding the tiny white horizon of tranquility,

And swimming in the fathomless dry black sea –

Now take the sun,

that frizzled man,

yellow, but not mellow with his wheels,

those indifferents and sycophants, recluses on tethers,

but curious about the moderate one,

oasis in the vacuous sands,

he peers into it,

up and down, day after day,

Today, for instance,

squinting through the spaces of the maple leaves’ umbrella

at the gardener dozing in his hammock,

whose cat rocks with him in the breeze,

through fragrances of new mown grass and pruned back hedges,

the outskirts of the butterfly’s float.

A swallowtail swims into light –

a hot sun spies it,

as on the sleeper’s lap

the cat’s eyes, nonchalant,

eclipse.