Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

and apples, mackintosh mostly, but any kind left in The Pub
at the Assisted Living Place

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

We found in his suitcase T-shirts, his siddur, gifts he bought for his grandchildren…

The sin is existing.

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

It is the 70s. 1970s? 2570s? Who knows?
Audre and I have a penthouse in New York.

Just starlight and some small scribbling across vinyl.

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

I don’t
know why
I’m in the garden
kneeling on dirt

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time