I untied the black ribbon. I tied it ’round
your breasts. Untied the black
ribbon tied it ’round the entire house
your breasts the sun the black sun.
Worms a hermit thrush a machine gun in the hands
of the handkerchief-head boy. Surreptitious
claims a man from the Midwest writes
things that make my face like Lake Huron
dance into fits of the world & her muses.
Blasting the dub right of King Tubby boss
to the mid-afternoon mourners & shouting
“Hallelujah to the Chief!” their convoy curves
away away. The cemetery’s next to the soda shoppe.
All these sad things & the black ribbon untied.
Your gray stone is unextraordinary. The evening star
on the other hand very quietly squirming.
It makes my vagina feel nice. “Swim to me”
my vagina urged that desperation working
your whole life toward absolutely nothing
salvation mercy hope nor kindness.
My mother died in the worst possible way.
At the peak of my powers I couldn’t’ve
saved her not that she could even take my hand
in hers to scratch an Instant Win Crazy.
Parakeets by the hundreds swarming over
tourist destinations long abandoned.
They know something’s black. The stones call
to them their lime-greenness their aquamarine
attacks on the rentals of important media figures
I can’t but see them joining the various molestations
that transfigure hundreds of innocents
behind those stuccoed walls. Compost makes
for poor conversation. Shoveling makes excellent
recreation allowing farmers to take a blow
hoe their way home from the haunted fields.
I compose by candlelight the song will
take you shake you break you in three.
A knowing foul the man’s in the autumn
of his summer. A pretty girl on the cover
of the magazine I leaf through. I wish I knew her name.
I wish all the same you were with me
when the pope found the subway map
next to the screwdriver near the hunchback’s
corpse. You were not. It’s OK. You’re here
now you breathe & are here. We live in an age
of empire rocketships these exquisite frozen
hors d’oeuvres consumed while we watch
The Legend of Bigfoot & the moon rises & rises.