The Past, Like Most Lessons
| Or the water—what does it have to do to
be safe? When it lies down with you when you see your reflection, and—you want to see it. She says, you can’t catch cancer from other people, but I don’t trust them. Then, I felt overlooked. I felt drugged. I felt like my insides were cooking. Now, after all these years, how do I find myself all tiny again, all seated at the table, at the table with my baby- doll St. Agnes Moorehead, St. Agnes Moorehead? (And they have a tear.) |
St Agnes? The left eye is a little bigger,
or the right one. And the kohl doesn’t help. She begins to wonder if she’ll be gone by the first scene. And sometimes she is gone. Into the first-class cabin, into the cabin, into the sleeping-car of whatever vehicle they happen to be on. She doesn’t reach for her vehicles. Of course the water is a vehicle: there is The Pride billowing : The Pride. She says, I don’t want you to see me like this. I don’t want you to see me. |
Antimatter
Don’t arch my face, you make my scowls stick up when you
Run in your underwear
Down to the lake
A map so fine the stars silver
Moon the outhouse cut-out (like fine lace–but who put it there)
This is a place that you should know but
Thank you for not undressing yet
Thank you
Let me talk
The dirty old town was barren and without soul
And you were barren and without soul
And the night was hot
You ran through the wild deluge
You ran to the lake edge
The lake of fire had its stars stuck on
The night in reverse, and they were very black
You shook your fist
And though your feet were not yet formed
Were clay
You said
This is not a place where we should meet, because
nothing ever comes here
Nothing ever dies
And nothing ever came there
Nothing ever died
That was the birth of a planet
Map of the Realm
From a faceful of dirt to 30,000 ft up, on Everest,
or better yet, on an airplane,
the view of beginning to beginning
(Come over a cloudbank and aha
Some tiny towns are
Really big towns, that way)
Of course you don’t know that you don’t land there
But everything looking postage-sized and pretty
Oh god
It takes Real towns and roads to make forests remote
winding that way
a river with some canoeists on it
a bridge with some canoeists on it
No, Ants crawl
up a table leg
I mean Needles
Pine needles on picnic tables on patios
Are (invisible) real good
Viewed from mountaintops, real good
Except, that when you take a picture
there comes a crowd in a bus
People
Am I late
omg
(With jealousy)
The museum starts to call at 10
Come in
Come in
Tintoretto Seurat we have them all
The travel itinerary
You don’t remember the rest of, its been a long day
(Fog taking you back)
So you take another picture,
go back to the coast
And there’s a sunset
The hotel rooms’ pictures ablaze…
And, is this the earth?
Well
Well the earth’s arms are so immense
that you take the hands off
You put the hands in a jar
And then you dig
You dig
You dig for a while on your knees and elbows