and green boats
pass, the drops fall on the scrubbed
decks, on the nets, on the shoulders
of the nearest ones, and they move up
the long waterway.
The crowds watching and waving:
the Sea Dream, the Normandie,
the Barbara Coast, the Little Hot
Dog, the God
Bless America, the Madame of Q.—
racing past the last tendrils
of the warm pudding
that is Louisiana.
Epithalamion for Tyler
I thought I knew something
about loneliness but
you go to the stockyards
buy a pig’s ear and sew
it on your couch. That, you
said, is my best friend—we
have spirited talks. Even
then I thought: a man of
such exquisite emptiness
(and you cultivated it so)
is ground for fine flowers.
For Mother on Father’s Day
You never got to recline
in the maternal tradition,
I never let you. Fate,
you call it, had other eyes,
for neither of us ever had
a counterpart in the way
familial traditions go.
I was your brother,
and you were my unhappy
neighbor. I pitied you
the way a mother pities
her son’s failure. I could
never find the proper
approach. I would have
lent you sugar, mother.
In a Town for Which I Know No Name
I think of your blind odor
too long till I collide with
barbers, and am suspected.
The clerk malingers when I
nod. I am still afraid of
the natural. Even the
decrepit animals,
coveting their papers and
curbs, awake and go breathing
through the warm darkness of
hotel halls. I think that they
are you coming back from the
colossal obscurity
of your exhausted passions,
and dash to the door again.
Success Comes to Cow Creek
I sit on the tracks,
a hundred feet from
earth, fifty from the
water. Gerald is
inching toward me
as grim, slow, and
determined as a
season, because he
has no trade and wants
none. It’s been nine months
since I last listened
to his fate, but I
know what he will say:
he’s the fire hydrant
of the underdog.
When he reaches my
point above the creek,
he sits down without
salutation, and
spits profoundly out
past the edge, and peeks
for meaning in the
ripple it brings. He
scowls. He speaks: when you
walk down any street
you see nothing but
coagulations
of shit and vomit,
and I’m sick of it.
I suggest suicide;
he prefers murder,
and spits again for
the sake of all the
great devout losers.
A conductor’s horn
concerto breaks the
air, and we, two doomed
pennies on the track,
shove off and somersault
like anesthetized
fleas, ruffling the
ideal locomotive
poised on the water
with our light, dry bodies.
Gerald shouts
terrifically as
he sails downstream like
a young man with a
destination. I
swim toward shore as
fast as my boots will
allow; as always,
neglecting to drown.
Why I Will Not Get Out of Bed
My muscles unravel
like spools of ribbon:
there is not a shadow
of pain. I will pose
like this for the rest
of the afternoon,
for the remainder
of all noons. The rain
is making a valley
of my dim features.
I am in Albania,
I am on the Rhine.
It is autumn,
I smell the rain,
I see children running
through columbine.
I am honey,
I am several winds.
My nerves dissolve,
my limbs wither—
I don’t love you.
I don’t love you.
Graveside
Rodina Feldervatova,
the community’s black angel—
well, we come to you,
having failed to sink
our