CONFESSIONAL POEM

Things happen on Earth

I ate artichoke flowers

When I was impoverished

And that was like eating a pearl

Leave the lion’s fur 

On its neck

The world isn’t good

Enough, anyway

I do everything I’m told

I do not go to the beaches of California

I have shrimp cocktails

I do not rent a camper van 

I buy a chaise longue 

My life is just disturbing

Incidents of me

With a boy 

I made one

Pucker behind the meat shed 

His feet were as big as his mouth

He played softly about my neck

With his wing-tipped shoes

That was the first time

I felt something

He makes wigs now

At the factory

Where many locals are missing

Patches of hair

Their tears can burn you

I don’t believe them

When they tell me

All ecstasy is imminent

A sword in the mouth

That kind of thing

PERSISTENCE
She must be traced through many dark paths / as a boy.
Susan Howe

When I saw   the first antlered
life standing 
soft

it was against the exact
force of everything

bright     snow       tree    

Retreating      maybe
he is what      we all want

from our choices
a great immediate aftermath

Birth could be the same loss
a footprint approaching disappearance

Softness is my master
in a dark green suit

I lie down in the snow
with it

Give it
a question

Where were you 
the day I had to live?

THE HEART IS CONVENTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE 

look down

the wrong end 

of the barrel

and you’ll see 

the roses

love is most sincere 

in the figure and 

next the fingers

you know 

how that goes

because darkness 

is a settled thing

night air dangles velvet

and everything changes

the blood

from my index is still

spilling onto my sentence 

that starts this.