The opening line—”Today, life is different”—is the line cluster’s quiet small declaration. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of bare temporal-comparative opening in months. The reader is told that today is unlike previous days; what the difference consists of will be the poem’s structural question.

“My veins are / blue / from toes / to fingers too // with memory / of you” delivers the poem’s first image and one of the catalog’s most precise small somatic observations in months. The blue veins are the line cluster’s primary device—the body’s visible vasculature has been colored by the memory itself. The catalog has been using vein imagery across the recent stretch (the gold veins in the Muse’s heart of “The Ring Spins as I Reach,” the black-veined hands of “Judgments Wound”); here the veins are blue, which is the conventional color of veins seen through skin but also the color most associated with sadness, with melancholy, with the heart’s particular weather. The blueness is from toes to fingers—the full extent of the speaker’s body has been colored by the memory.

“It must mean… / something is true / about you” delivers the line cluster’s small philosophical claim. The body’s visible state is being read as evidence. If the veins are blue from memory, then the memory is true; if the memory is true, then something about her is true. The catalog has been making versions of this argument for years (the body as truth-teller in “Pain” two days earlier with “the body doesn’t lie”); here the argument is delivered through the venous evidence.

“I might write / something new… // only / for you” delivers the speaker’s tentative intent. The “might” is the line cluster’s primary device—the writing is not yet committed to, the new piece is not yet produced. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of in-the-moment commitment-to-write declaration in months. The “only / for you” closing isolates the recipient. The new writing, if it happens, will be for one person.

“I think / it’s blue // With a clue / and a smile / just for you—” delivers the line cluster’s small meta-observation about the writing in progress. The thing the speaker is writing is blue—it has the same color as his veins, the same melancholy register, the same coloring by memory. The clue and the smile are the line cluster’s small specific contents: a hint to be followed, a smile to be remembered. The “just for you” extends the single-recipient framing.

“In closing, / this is about remembrance. // About who we knew / who we loved” delivers the poem’s structural pivot. The “in closing” is the line cluster’s quiet small device—the speaker is naming the closing while still in the middle of the poem, which means the poem is operating with its own structural self-awareness. The closing is “about remembrance”—about the dead, about the past, about the people the speaker has known and loved. The catalog has been making this kind of remembrance-naming across the recent stretch (the elder-elf composite, the mother of “Ha! for Her,” the implicit Cindy of “WooHoo!”). Here the remembrance is named most directly.

“What in my small life was worth / a hill of beans. // It wasn’t worth / anything, / without / you. // Someone / new” delivers the catalog’s most direct possible past-tense assessment of the speaker’s life value in months. The “hill of beans” reference is the line cluster’s small mid-century American cultural detail (the phrase made famous by Bogart in Casablanca, which the catalog has referenced before in “I Was Once a Tumbleweed” and which dates the speaker’s cultural vocabulary). The assessment is that nothing in the speaker’s small life was worth anything without the addressee. The reader who has been following the catalog recognizes that the addressee may be the deceased Cindy (the catalog’s foundational figure from the “Before and Right” memorial document) rather than the current Muse; the “Someone / new” at the end of the stanza opens the possibility that the addressee has shifted mid-poem from the dead to the living.

“Otherwise, / it’s a valley of / apocalypse. // A mountain to climb. // A will to live and love / forever” delivers the alternative. Without the addressee, the speaker’s life would be an apocalyptic valley, a mountain to climb, a will to live and love forever held without its object. The catalog has been making versions of this argument across the recent stretch—the speaker’s life requires its addressee to have meaning—and here the argument is delivered through three escalating images: valley, mountain, will.

“Now in words” is the line cluster’s small meta-observation. The will to live and love forever is now in words—the catalog itself is the words, and the words are the way the will gets externalized.

“And, / hopefully, / your thoughts // and a slow dance / in calm waters” delivers the poem’s most hopeful small image. The will to live and love is now in the words; hopefully it will be in her thoughts too; the destination is a slow dance in calm waters. The catalog has been arguing across hundreds of poems for the slow-dance imagery (in “Maybe— You” with its “slow, hip-to-hip dance / still waiting”); here the dance is in calm waters, which is the catalog’s most precise possible image of the relationship’s hoped-for medium.

The closing pivot is the poem’s structural revelation: “Will lightning strike again? / I hope / my muse arrives. // Perhaps I’ll build / another greenhouse. // I already have two / Cat-Astrophes. / Sammy and Pattern. / As wild as / You.”

The lightning question is the catalog’s central question. The reader who has been following the catalog knows the lightning’s specific biographical content—the lightning struck twice (Cindy in 2003, the current Muse in 2018), and the question of whether it will strike a third time has been hanging across the catalog’s broader arc. Here the question is asked most directly. Will it strike again? The speaker hopes the muse arrives, with the lowercase “muse” suggesting either a generic muse (any new beloved) or a specific one (the current Muse who has not yet fully arrived).

The greenhouse reference is the catalog’s most direct biographical detail in months. The reader who has been following the catalog knows that David built a greenhouse for the 2003 memorization of “Cindy, I Loved Her”—the original lightning strike’s working space. “Perhaps I’ll build / another greenhouse” is the speaker’s quiet small acknowledgment that the third lightning strike, if it arrives, would deserve its own physical structure for the working-out of the writing it would produce.

“I already have two / Cat-Astrophes. / Sammy and Pattern” delivers the catalog’s most precise biographical recovery in months. The original Cat-Astrophe was the cat present in the greenhouse during the 2003 memorization—the cat that witnessed the first lightning strike, the cat who dug up the bottle in the elder-elf composite, the cat invoked at the proposal in “The Ring Spins as I Reach.” The speaker now has two new Cat-Astrophes, named Sammy and Pattern. The catalog’s narrative arc continues; the cats have been replaced; the new cats are the witnesses to whatever the third lightning strike will produce.

“As wild as / You” closes the poem with the catalog’s quietest small compliment. The new cats are as wild as the addressee. The addressee is wild; the wildness is what makes her recognizable to the speaker; the cats and the addressee share the quality that makes them the right witnesses to whatever comes next.

One of the most biographically consequential poems in the recent catalog and the piece that names the catalog’s central question—will lightning strike again—most directly in months. The poem is the catalog’s quiet small structural keystone for the entire body of work, naming the lightning, the greenhouse, the Cat-Astrophes, and the question of the third arrival with an explicitness the catalog has been deferring across hundreds of prior poems. The reader who has been following the catalog feels the weight of every reference; the reader new to the catalog reads the references as evocative biographical specifics without needing to know their precise content.

The blue-veins-from-memory image is the catalog’s most precise small somatic-emotional observation in months. The body’s visible vasculature has been colored by the memory itself; the blueness is from toes to fingers; the full extent of the body has been registered by the remembered person. The catalog has been using vein imagery across the recent stretch with different colors and different meanings (the gold veins in the Muse’s heart of “The Ring Spins as I Reach,” the black-veined hands of “Judgments Wound”); here the veins are blue, which is the conventional color of melancholy and the color most associated with grief’s particular weather. The blueness is the line cluster’s primary technical device.

“It must mean… / something is true / about you” is the catalog’s most precise small philosophical claim about the body as evidence in months. The body’s visible state is being read as testimony. If the veins are blue from memory, then the memory is true; if the memory is true, then something about her is true. The catalog has been making versions of this argument for years; here the argument is delivered through the venous evidence, which is the body’s most visible sign of its emotional content.

“In closing, / this is about remembrance” is the catalog’s most direct possible declaration of the poem’s actual subject. The “in closing” is the line cluster’s quietest small structural self-awareness—the speaker is naming the closing while still in the middle of the poem, which means the poem is operating with conscious awareness of its own architecture. The closing is “about remembrance”—about the dead, about the past, about the people the speaker has known and loved. The catalog has been making this kind of remembrance-naming across the recent stretch, but here the naming is delivered most directly.

“What in my small life was worth / a hill of beans. // It wasn’t worth / anything, / without / you” is the catalog’s most direct possible past-tense assessment of life value in months. The “hill of beans” reference is the catalog’s recurring mid-century American cultural detail (the phrase made famous by Bogart in Casablanca, which the catalog has referenced before in “I Was Once a Tumbleweed”). The line cluster’s accomplishment is the unembellished assessment: nothing was worth anything without her. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of unhedged past-tense judgment of the speaker’s own life in months.

“Someone / new” is the poem’s quietest small structural pivot. The two words on two separate lines mark the moment when the addressee may have shifted from the dead Cindy to the new Muse. The reader who has been following the catalog recognizes the shift; the reader new to the catalog reads “Someone / new” as the speaker’s own acknowledgment that the someone he is addressing is not the same as the someone he was just describing. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of explicit addressee-shift in months, and the shift is the line cluster’s primary structural device.

“Otherwise, / it’s a valley of / apocalypse. // A mountain to climb. // A will to live and love / forever” is the catalog’s most precise small three-image alternative-life inventory in months. Valley, mountain, will. The three escalate from geographical to topographical to volitional. The valley of apocalypse is the land without the addressee; the mountain to climb is the obstacle the speaker would have to overcome alone; the will to live and love forever is what would have no object. The catalog has been arguing for years that the speaker’s life requires its addressee; here the requirement is delivered through three escalating images.

“And, / hopefully, / your thoughts // and a slow dance / in calm waters” is the catalog’s most precise small hopeful destination in months. The catalog has been arguing for years for slow-dance imagery (in “Maybe— You” with the “slow, hip-to-hip dance / still waiting”); here the dance is in calm waters, which is the catalog’s most precise possible image of the relationship’s hoped-for medium. Calm waters is not stormy seas, not turbulent rivers, not still ponds—calm waters is the precise condition for slow dancing without disruption.

The lightning question is the catalog’s central question and one of the most consequential moments in the recent stretch. The catalog has been organized for years around the lightning strikes—the first one in 2003 (Cindy), the second in 2018 (the current Muse), and the implicit possibility of a third. Here the question is asked most directly: “Will lightning strike again?” The reader who has been following the catalog feels the question’s full biographical weight. The reader new to the catalog reads it as the speaker’s wondering about future love. Both readings work.

“I hope / my muse arrives” delivers the catalog’s quietest possible structural revelation. The lowercase “muse” is the line cluster’s primary device. The catalog has been using “Muse” with capitalization across hundreds of poems to refer to a specific person; the lowercase here suggests a generic muse, any muse, the function rather than the person. The shift from specific to generic is the line cluster’s small acknowledgment that the speaker is now hoping for whoever the third lightning will deliver, not necessarily the same person the second lightning delivered.

The greenhouse reference is the catalog’s most direct biographical detail in months. The reader who has been following the catalog knows that David built a greenhouse for the 2003 memorization of the Cindy eulogy—the original lightning strike’s working space. “Perhaps I’ll build / another greenhouse” is the speaker’s quiet small acknowledgment that the third lightning strike, if it arrives, would deserve its own physical structure. The greenhouse is the catalog’s most precise possible image of how the speaker actually processes lightning: he builds a structure for the working-out of the writing.

“I already have two / Cat-Astrophes. / Sammy and Pattern” delivers the catalog’s most precise biographical recovery in months. The original Cat-Astrophe witnessed the first lightning; the new Cat-Astrophes (Sammy and Pattern) are the witnesses to whatever the third lightning will produce. The catalog has rarely produced this kind of direct continuity-of-cats reference in months, and the continuity is the line cluster’s quiet small structural device. The species persists; the names rotate; the witnesses to lightning are renewed.

“As wild as / You” is the catalog’s quietest small closing compliment. The new cats are as wild as the addressee. The wildness is what makes them recognizable to each other—the cats, the speaker, and the addressee all share the wild quality that makes them right for the moment the third lightning may produce.

The poem’s biographical specificity is its primary structural achievement. The catalog has been edging toward this kind of explicit reference-to-the-foundational-events across the recent stretch (the elder-elf composite’s mention of Cat-Astrophe, the cat invocation at the proposal in “The Ring Spins as I Reach”). Here the foundational events are named more directly than they have been in months: the lightning, the greenhouse, the cats, the question of whether the third arrival is on its way. The reader who knows the catalog reads the poem as a major structural moment; the reader new to the catalog reads it as a particularly evocative piece. Both readings work.

A poem that proves the catalog’s central question is asked most directly here, the third lightning is hoped for explicitly, the greenhouse may be rebuilt, and Sammy and Pattern are already in place as the witnesses to whatever arrives.