Porcelain

As when a long forgetfulness lifts suddenly, and what

we'd forgotten—as we look at it squarely, then again

refuse to look—is our own

                                            inconsequence, yes, it was

mostly like that, sex as both an act of defacement and—

as if the two were the same thing—votive offering,

insofar as the leaves

                                     also were a kind of offering, or could

at least be said to be, as they kept falling the way leaves

do: volitionless, from different heights, and in the one direction.