NASTY
Standing in her naked room,
he rubs a dryness over his towel.
There's the tunnel of truth.
Some constant whirring overhead all night long.
He'll dress and get a sandwich and coffee.
Doesn't feel like brilliant conversation.
Does it have to? It's a mistake with a name.
Know it. Sleep in Toronto-- afraid to speak--
but what difference-- and shiver.
A day turns its eye down red and then night
illuminates the burrito joint. Her poems make him wince.
He can't stay in their longing without oxygen.
The rain on his car makes him certain
the aim of the meadow is off. The chihuahua-yipping
when she came like the alpha-numerical disease he wanted made renewal possible.
Tomorrow, he will place his hand on the susurrus of her thigh and drive.
Maybe a big pile of cash would be perfect.
CHINABERRY
Aren't our days complete letters mailed to us
from some orbiting mystery?
The leaves
lying like money on the ground.
The bare branches of the chinaberry
twist in divination.
You can't even see
the smallpox on the gift blanket.
My feet relaxed, a couple aspirin
in my gut fight for fame
over the bean burrito.
Squirrel likes to chew on the garage.
One of earth's prime points
of arrival, sometimes I feel if life keeps
flowing, I... I might just make it. But God,
there aren't any guarantees.
I looked at the catalog.
The bronze cowgirls and Indians
wanted a ecstatic ending to the day,
sweat and a port of azure.
What they call the triple lutz.
There is a certain kind of pressure
that brings eels, phobias of grocery stores.
We emphasize releasing the tight spots of the body.
The intuitive ballet.
WEEKENDS
The evening held a highway crowded by lanterns
heading back to the city. We could see
the Lincoln Memorial and knew we were home. Reagan
survived his wounds. I turned on the radio
and listened on my headphone, tried to discern
the signal whining from space. No real news.
I tuned in a basketball game. In retrospect
the coach was okay, caught up in Iowa racism
at the victim's end. The signal was stronger
in winter, which is when I listened, becoming sick
with some regularity and missing work, as I
remember. Some
weekends we'd see the carousel at Glen Echo,
or drive, trying to find a new home
in Western Maryland or Eastern West Virginia
at the confluence, a good word when you let
it flow over the tongue, or
the sun and its disk-shaped vehicles.
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