every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

the sky is
seamlessly blue-gray
rippling over dark Cambridge
splashing down into the Charles
where it meets the highway

I am
on a fifth floor that feels more like a basement
parsing the writings
of a sweaty-toothed madman
and his heirs
willing or unwilling

I remember
clouds overseas, over seas
that broke up against the easternmost wall of my continent
and an island at the end of the world
where kids with soccer nets in their damp front yards
grew food in walled-off Cromwellian soil
and went to the mainland when they needed the twentieth century.

this sky is
heavy and low as in Ireland
as at the foggy tip of the English emperor's reign
old New England in muted color
and Dickensian quiet beauty
miles away.