Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

a folksome, gruesome opera
of gauze and malcontent.

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies

I imagined a cascade of slow death for all / that mattered…

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

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

I myself should never have been born

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

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

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

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

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

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