When you enter the city of riots, confess
what turns your life has taken,
what is hard-on and what is mineral. Confess
until the wind catches itself by the tail.
Or find some solace. Mr. Skylight captains
a houseboat downstream like a vitamin.
I can only just begin to bear the chain-link fence.
Reflected in a puddle, the image trembles
as I tremble. The image freezes, I shiver.
It is like the immensity Gregor Samsa
is hoping to sleep through, but, well, can’t.
The woman playing Atari in public has, has…
Everything’s hauled away. In buckets.
These peaches, for example. I have heard
of you, yes, the monkey says. The moon
offers its offensive and ridiculous bulge.
*
Out in the salvage yard the snowy drifts
are not snow. White paint on frames,
they lean against front doors that won’t open in.
Mr. Skylight, stumbling through, asks
“Didn’t we just finish painting this wall?”
“Aren’t the brushes still drying on the sill?”
When the moment opens again,
remember to feel the immense province
pulling-in, a hand here and here,
remember to smell what first was sweet,
apricots just sliced, one half-globe still rolling.
His wife ran upstairs to call police
as the “assailant took the victim’s own
paring knife from the counter.”
We show this on the snowy channels
most sets veil, between the black and white:
how they dragged Mr. Skylight inside and made
demands, then went deeper into his building,
and the iron gate lifted off its spindle.
*
Hill of stubble in moonlight, the hog
bristles across the lawn,
eats whole bouquets, eats bouquets whole,
plowing tusk through silk rose, a fresh lily.
Our headstones surrender their salt.
Wilder animals would not perturb us.
Worse hogs will cross and sand
down names. This one, at least, grunts life.
He would eat hog, could he make one die.
If there is a man inside the hog costume,
wanting to feel unchanged, so there is a hog
wearing an interior fake man. How, then,
is the lifeboat going to find us, and will
there be room in a craft so bundled-up
with early survivors, clawing and shouting?
*
When I tell Mr. Skylight my dream
he doubles my prescription. Pen in hand,
he gestures at his shelf of resources
and says take your pick. At the same moment,
your butcher jabs his butcher knife
toward the row of basted ham shanks,
take your pick.
We leave the dock at dawn for trout.
What Argonauts we are.
Dawn-lavendered boats bring in night’s catch.
I stand above in the gray sweatshirt,
belly full of cauliflower soup,
in a light rain. On the sidewalk, a
teenager repairs a
satellite with a wrench.
*
I never go to town, but go ahead, please.
Town’s for those who care for being seen.
I have this mirror to magnify my flame,
a funhouse glimpse. When I don’t see it
I’m ghost. It’s true I’ve become stone.
Awake, I see their lights in return; asleep
on the walkway I feel their immense dreams,
from crow’s nest to captain’s quarters.
They chart their paths. I rudder my continent
which I’m still learning. You try, Skylight.
I’ve fashioned this wheel. It attaches at the eyes.
A bellow from the soccer stadium,
musty, erotic, indignant,
lands against my brick wall
and rolls through the broken window.
I hear what it says: be alone.
As the roaring emerges into a chant
naming the home team. |
