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Nightfall 
With a plunk, like the old drunken poet
falling into a stream, we're suddenly drenched
with darkness. No one expected a plunge,
the free fall into some other element.
It takes a while to find balance. Out
on the porch, we lie on deck chairs,
weary passengers to somewhere else.
Mt. Tam bundles down under flannel blankets,
like us, as Venus appears in a cat's cradle
of phone wires. Upland Berkeley—
street light hums, jasmine and verbena,
cars struggling through their gears up Marin.
I try to describe those tiny
rainbow shells that bury themselves
in Florida sand. You tell about
a cove in Hawaii, bright fish,
then suddenly a crowd of dolphins
surrounds you. Being among them.
Something unimagined happens, some leap
of the heart dropping its old scales,
tired fish, that wasn't expecting
a voyage, just wanted to be tucked in
to its berth, wanted a bedtime story,
wanted one light left on.
Paperweight
Bee keeper
the clovered hum
purple thistle radiating pin-sphere
fog gone off the morning
what will you make
of a day's rest
treasuring the involuted minutes
how they're packed, invisible suitcases,
carrying your first language, my old dolls,
a photo of each cat except the last one
stories lined by the ribs
of a broken umbrella
bird cage without its green parakeet
lined like the lacquered box's compartments
containing thread, ivory frog,
jade circle, thimble, carved yak-bone,
look—a royal wedding of blue and red
drop-shaped, folding out beneath
the furry body, palps flared, legs starting
to fold in for the landing, tongue unfurled
gelled under the lucite curve
hold each second still
pretend to own it
be at home with what never happens
the meal deferred, pollen
not collected or dispersed
perversely frozen, no breeding
the imagined inconsummate
held like the words
that never arrive, nectar
from the future's glossy dome.
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Alice
Jones's books include 