Meanwhile, back in the life the police
would eventually uncover, things began

to go badly. Foreigners with no alibis
were hotlinking to your weblog by the minute

where it would turn out that no one you knew
was over eighteen. It seemed a countdown

could be begun at goose-is-cooked o'clock,
the exact minutes mattering less, the more

the foregone made amends with the inevitable.
Fame, when it came, turned out to be

more interesting than you imagined it,
in all those years amassing debt, not once

did you see yourself crying on television,
wondering if you looked believable.

who catch fish every time they cast a line.
I've seen them,
I've fished with them,
using the same equipment and technique
and most often, I go home empty,
while their baskets overflow
without reason.

These guys have ruined any chance I had
at establishing a unified field theory for my life.
If not for these casual heroes,
I could be full of acceptance and forbearance.

History has called them Calvin's elect.
As a teenager, I called them gods and blamed them for all my suffering.
Here, in our fourth decade,
we of the preterit masses
having relented and birthed our beautiful children,
have renounced fishing altogether.

We balance our checkbooks and sigh.
It's nice to have a clean desk.

I am quite wealthy
Mansion on the Hudson
Hundreds of acres
River frontage and forest
Fields and burbling brooks
I pay a man to live alone
In the woods
His hair is long and matted
Nails are never to be cut
He bathes in the summer
And wears a burlap tunic
I visit him and he's supposed to tell me
What it's like to be so alone
Reflecting on solitude
The wisdom of nature
He gets paid every seven years
I provide food and a bible
He stopped speaking last winter
I may have to let him go.

No man who shared his sex with me
                broke me.

Hotel room:
refuge from close quarters

he pretending to be Scarface,
vigilante, he—
womanizer,
he showed me
On used sheets
washed, dried, stretched, molded into
Stark space.

Bathroom    faintly lit
From behind, he—

rammed it in.
A wife's punishment, he said.
I looked left.

Wall shadows.
Butter-
colored background
silhouette ass
rod hidden
Forced flesh until climax.
—I remember being 26.

Lingering like a lump
behind the throat it is
impeding the breath which is shallow
like a battlefield grave

so that no screams are emitted full force
so that thieves keep on with their work
removing livers and hearts
then dancing, raucous, with party
buzzers and zappers

Not that the word could achieve anything
material—not that it could
lift mountains
cleave rock

Poor cousin to the dream they can't murder
it is thought it is love—
the cup of water offered
when we can

Lord,
I pray unto thee,
Called the child named Inner
Why must it be me?
Cried she, proclaimed
Sinner

Why
Must there never be
A promise made
And still yet kept?
Must we not know the truth
Until after
We've wept?

Lord,
I plead you,
Quiet not my lament
Grant me not beauty,
Nor memory
From whence I was sent!

Let me be
Blind
Keep me from heartache
Never reveal, Beloved,
Our Oneness,
For Sobriety's sake!

unhinged the thought of fixing lives abridged the taut and fixed lies she's fucked the fucked and fallen stars she's dreamed the dreams and screwed the farce and in the iris of her eyes blue diaries and lullabies and in the iris of her eyes blue diaries and lullabies her faceless face a piece of her her shadowed voice released from her the ink of queens of stupid things of mangled words of pangs unheard and in the iris of her eyes blue diaries and lullabies and in the fire of her eyes blue diaries and lullabies her canvas is a dumping ground her sand is quick and sinking down invisible her violin divisible her silent sins and in the iris of her eyes blue diaries and lullabies and in the iris of her eyes blue diaries and fireflies her raptured bed a captive fed her seething skin her pierced within explosions from her underground her potions sipped and veins unwound and in the iris of her eyes blue diaries and lullabies and in the iris of her eyes blue diaries and lullabies

I still remember
how everything was
placed
in your room.

while you sleep,
the evening sun
spins shimmering straw
from gold

the bowl of sky
pours out his moons—
you cover your eyes
with stones

the lilac is waving
her velvet gloves...
soon, very soon, you say
say and do not come

A poet wants to want
A poet is a mechanic
A poet is your mommy
A poet was you
A poet was there
A poet is me
A poet is a filter
A poet wants your money