On the roof of an art academy in America, the midterm elections

don't touch tourists, the politicians for a few days allowed

to fade to silhouette

in a country not glad to see us, but

at least it's not sad, at least it won't obsess

about its own tide, as we do. When a psychoanalyst

says adults have no notion of home, a

nomadic woman says rubbish

and in America rubbish perches on gutters

and won't wash down. A gull has a sense of home?

A bumblebee is bumbling home?

We bumble but we do not gull, only

cull our belongings as we wait to board our next plane out. In our bold age. In our bumble back to riches and our gull back to rags.

To know we can't know's when

we find the roof 's clock tower with six ropes

suspended from its top, pigeons long flown,

one man singing as he loads the bell. The bell, because

now we prefer our music simpler

than our words, because the bell can set the sun

in view of a country we only ever visit

but make believe's our own. Now we too can set

the sun; forget what earth's made of, send

our quick-fingered-work offshore.

The surprise

change in the tastes we've known

all the time we've had a body; has the taste slipped;

have we? All I know's to go outside

each time a storm breaks, for the first

sleet, fist-sized hail, the cloud

that takes our shadows, the rain-thwackedroads;

to break open the lie

of the brainsafe screensaver,

the lie of clear skies, of stars.