I have an axe
with hearts gashed

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

I suffer visions and many indignities
while looking for the Lobster

Should have found a job by now; should have slept in the night;
should have boiled old coffee before noon.

Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

I like to think I’m also sprung,
released from the furnace knocks,
done with the heavy meat stews
and salty soups.

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

You are strange, my mother said, dwelling on the past.

I myself should never have been born

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

I have observed, the theorist
I am

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.

Now that the Israeli has left, it falls
on me to make the salad.

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.