#68

Desks in narrow rows. Reprehensile. Recycle. I worry. Add it all up, and the computer takes multi variables. Class comes with red wine. A gimmick perhaps. Hear gimmee, hear mimic. Will holds up the book as though it were a Bible, someone else's. His hands firm quotation marks. We would rather read something more adult. Melanie, next to me, snickers. Engender what comes. I say, in strong disjuncture, the future is a woman. Do people hear? The mugger when he grabs at Vicki. "Is that all you have, bitch?" Adieu.

After the calm. Play dress up in mirrors. I see how I balance like a crow. A murder, but not that. Difficult writing. If you're going to renege, bring them back again. Square: "Fuck off, ponce." Titania: a pen in hand. Measure it this way. Ended, but I might read again. "If you pay off the Bug," my mom says. You can drive it. Blue. At this very moment, yes I am, yes.

#67

In bed all day Sunday I kept you. On floor or ceiling, the shapes of clouds through windows. Sleep it off, and watch the spout when rising. You go down the ladder. You go out the door. The streets are whistling through your open pockets. Photograph.

On a cliff in your city, the branches bow with blossoms. The fences, men. Jean jackets. And tourists who never stare. In the bathroom, the yellow arc of my urine. Wolper chattering from a stall where he sits. Run off before he flushes. And then back, through the corridors, students, for my green bag. Adrian in tow, until. I hadn't left it, no.

Alone, one thinks of living. Capitalize the word. There for a day, then gone. Kerry somewhere busy in her car. Here, where it's always green. Erica with her boyfriend, grumpy. Say, Lana, I'll meet you in the Square. Mirrors round the edges, windows. Pass, as I did Matt on the street this morning, and laugh. Envy. The Living. Always thinking it yours. Or should I, as you say, question my motivations? No.

#66

Come from a small town. Boys and girls in every forest. Tina, sunrise hair, stepping to the box for mail. And Michael, who meets her, artist hands unsteady holding. I thought, in those days, of doppelgangers, multiple perspective of the one. Father bending over comic books to sell. The snakes that slept in the rocky staircase above the green. Mother, who read there, egg timer on the ledge.

Sleep with music playing. Imagine. Transforming swans and tricksters. A sister, hand on bridle, the horse walking over leave-strewn paths. Familiar. A glass coffin beneath the earth. Let him sleep. And turn away. I felt, their jeers like stones, desire. To climb the wood's tallest tree. To live as birch and oak, the birds and dryads family.

This time, arm-in-arm on busy Friday, the cold led to couples dancing. And I departed. The evening light on terracotta pots, sleeping leaves and yawning mouths. Disrobe and then: the shroud of sheet some king's regalia. Error-less, while the others work for land. Micah too, the flame of eyes that shine. The earth razed and ready for planting. Burrow in. Tuck Joyce under arm and press tight in the dark for warmth.

#65

New dreams for old. J's blond hair wet while I search the cabinet for aspirin. 5 pills or 2? The toothbrushes tilt in their steel canister, touch. On the phone it is Rich, breakfast. The milk carton's morning advertisement. An echo in return, my voice. "I can't tell," he says, "if you really want me there or not?" Bam. The vagaries of fashion.

Elaine was there, and the one besides Lula. She sketched me once in charcoal, my clothes in a heap at the ground. Try to keep the rest from rising. Bookstore. A sudden decision. The past that's passed, now closing. And the back, far back, through the towering overstock, up the stairs to a door. Ross and Sky, Chuck and Holly. A giant cave, and kitchen, bed. Magazine posters taped on walls that curve.

The Living, Blake called it. As what's far from us. Or that book of poems I read him. I carried a camera all day, forgot it and retraced my steps. Ran my hands through scarves in stores. Adrian's smile a treasure. And over coffee Rebecca, in red jacket, crossed and uncrossed her legs, and spoke of signs and film. Follow her there. Don't recall Deleuze. Forget the anaesthesiast.

Maybe someone somewhere else. The bar next door, cartoons on one wall, video golf the other. Remember. Drinks and dessert. Anita's indigo scarf. Darby and Elyse in congress. Oh, yes, she said, still in riding garb. Until we all paired and the curtains fell. Next time, I tell her, bring a switch. Another round. We'll get a prompter, and raise some hell. Write: I should be fun.

#64

Like a little boy I am. BRB. Sweater, your hands, hair. What one calls negative affirmation. I gathered books and read them while a woman's dog sniffed at my shoes. I thought, Adrian is writing a novel. Tim is throwing a party. Leaves were lifted, spun and seen. A minature plane across the dabs of cloud in sky.

Masculine/Masculine the title. Change it: epistemology. "How Should I Know?" A political aesthetics in essay form. An aesthesia. My not so little joke. A hand instead, on thigh, and up. Fingers. Micah storms out of the shop. In front, a man on computer: "I want to be an architecht," he types and then erases. I want it to rain.

I am thinking of a Renaissance artist. The difference between "suck" and "suckle." Her hair is long and dark. What of it? Motherhood is solitary, my counselor says. I shouldn't take it personally. Andy-Pandy-Pudding-and-Pie... Use that somewhere. Not to his face, of course. Better for Benjy perhaps. They can have him. Do-do-doot do-doo. Yes, it's a grave, you know. Leave flowers there. Like a harried beast I am.

#63

Silver morning. The dustrag displacing books and boxes. Call it, "moral relativism." Vietnam, Korea: a sliding word. Tea with honey, leftover sweets. Tiny glinting bowls collecting crumbs. Recall, as before, a traffic blockade: my mother, stalled, go meet her. Stutter out a dream. Parents, children, crimes. The scuttling authorship. Resent.

Clutch a red pillow, open. The afternoon swollen and present, full. Steve Reich on the stereo. Strings, someone said, mean breath, lungs, respite. I picture a girl through brush, parting the leaves to see what's there. That night when he saw you at the bar. Run after then, catch him with a turn, and say... Things inside of things. Melanie, the word melon. Blake, the word lake. See each consonant a spinning tale. And wait.

Carter calls. Art. He lifts my chin to see. What is dark there, tell him. A father walking through a door with jacket. Trace this with a deed, stay. An echo, Ryan, foolish, follows. Care for him, that's what's learned. Open-eyed collecter of heirlooms. Unpack what's been crated. Draw a hand close. And a light on, each night, for him. Who else will you be alone?

#62

Quote Keats. Over beer with Jon. Hesse now, or Musil. Mingled words, images bibulous ensuing. The river, find it. Rove in skins for omphalos, signature, stone. Action. A legend, like on tea. One can make out / what one will make of: something. A big page in the notebook, inky alias across. Conjure and her and err. I listened.

Then rest while they visit. Sarah's Phebus, God of Sun. Azazel in the pillowed chair. Lemon water and honey for the cough, which will rise, if it does, you know. Half-eyed: Tim on bicycle pause. Let no man look down on your youth. Friends, tells me, and this, post and party. Parting. Happier now, maybe. Failsafe cure. Mine own not, a sturdy shoe booting me. Frail though, consolation. No dissolution without analysis.

A sentimentalist. Debtorship. Owe him something. Dream him in darkness while the humidifier hmummmms. Tell him finally so he'll hear. Father me urgent, say. Read me harder than the gesture. Distangle. Never enough seed to plant. His roving too though, immense charge. What collapsed? Bedside, I remember. All those tubes in his old man. Electric box buried under skin. Anoint him thus with holy water. Try to tend the puzzle strewn on table, dad. Find a frame. That trip: he called out in his sleep, we slept. What did he say? No matter. Grand scheme of things, his ears stopped. The elder slipping off his bed and dying. My aunt wearing black for grief. Sit in mourning, seven days. More maybe. Tell him the truth, that's my mother. And...? I wandered the streets without him. A New York souse, can't be bothered. Notice the rhyme. And that too, remember, back before him, the similar streets in winter and that newspaper notice with a cup of coffee. Tore it out to remember. That day, is it? Or her? But none of that for him, and I, who had manned the travels, found him work, calmed the jut and tremor of his nerves. Leave me be to my grief, and accept nothing for my loss. Why does it move me still, your moves so still in comparison? Listen.