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The Lumieres’ first movies were of ordinary life: workers leaving their father’s factory; parents at the table while the baby eats. The brothers found the man’s hands at work building a wall just as beautiful when played backwards, the man leaping into the water and equal delight when he rose again into the air. It’s strange the brothers gave up so quickly on film, but they did. People would grow bored, they said,could see the same thing on the street. A novelty,

Until then, every forest had wolves in it, we thought it would be fun to wear snowshoes all the time, and we could talk to water. So who is this woman with the gray breath calling out names and pointing to the little desks we will occupy for the rest of our lives?

The child’s assignment: “What is a city?” All dusk she sucks her pencil while cars swish by like ghosts, neighbors’ radios forecast rain, high clouds, diminishing winds: at last she writes: “The city is everyone.” Now it’s time for math, borrowing and exchanging, the long discipleship to zero, the stranger, the force that makes us what we study: father and child, writing in separate books, infinite and alone.

Afterwards you had that drunk, drugged look my daughter used to get, when she had let go of my nipple, her mouth gone slack and her eyes turned vague and filmy, as though behind them the milk was rising up to fill her whole head, that would loll on the small white stalk of her neck so I would have to hold her closer, amazed at the sheer power of satiety, which was nothing like the needing to be fed, the wild flailing and crying until she fastened herself to me and made the seal tight between us, and sucked, drawing the liquid down and out of my body; no,this was the crowning moment, this giving of herself, knowing she could show me how helpless she was—that’s what I saw, that night when you pulled your mouth from mine and leaned back against a chain-link fence, in front of a burned-out church: a man who was going to be that vulnerable, that easy and impossible to hurt.

As you may have inferred, Ka Pow is not a spicy chicken dish Meanwhile, you are an accident waiting to repurpose yourself Who are you to mix up languages? This is not a smorgasbord You have to remember that you are a cylinder, a form of fodder Meanwhile, you are an accident waiting to repurpose yourself Why do you need an expensive phone? It won’t help you in the future You have to remember that you are a cylinder, a form of fodder Our company motto: other than you, no waste shall go to waste Why do you need an expensive phone? It won’t help you in the future Have you ever thought of joining the circus? You might find a home there Our company motto: other than you, no waste shall go to waste Choosing suitable punishments is an unavoidable necessity Have you ever thought of joining the circus? You might find a home there. If you are speaking about my place in the universe, that’s not right Choosing suitable punishments is an unavoidable necessity Hasn’t the sky repeatedly proven to be the most excellent manager If you are speaking about my place in the universe, that’s not right Memories are iridescent insects infiltrating your dreams Hasn’t the sky repeatedly proven to be the most excellent manager Little sphinxes, I have instructed you to the best of my ability Memories are iridescent insects infiltrating your dreams As you may have inferred, Ka Pow is not a spicy chicken dish Little sphinxes, I have instructed you to the best of my ability Who are you to mix up languages? This is not a smorgasbord

I have been one acquainted with the spatula, the slotted, scuffed, Teflon-coated spatula that lifts a solitary hamburger from pan to plate, acquainted with the vibrator known as the Pocket Rocket and the dildo that goes by Tex, and I have gone out, a drunken bitch, in order to ruin what love I was given, and also I have measured out my life in little pills—Zoloft, Restoril, Celexa, Xanax. I have. For I am a poet. And it is my job, my duty to know wherein lies the beauty of this degraded body, or maybe it's the degradation in the beautiful body, the ugly me groping back to my desk to piss on perfection, to lay my kiss of mortal confusion upon the mouth of infinite wisdom. My kiss says razors and pain, my kiss says America is charged with the madness of God. Sundays, too, the soldiers get up early, and put on their fatigues in the blue- black day. Black milk. Black gold. Texas tea. Into the valley of Halliburton rides the infantry— Why does one month have to be the cruelest, can't they all be equally cruel? I have seen the best gamers of your generation, joysticking their M1 tanks through the sewage-filled streets. Whose world this is I think I know.

Titian’s Young Englishman with a Glove, circa 1530 It happened in Physics, reading a Library art book under the desk, (the lesson was Archimedes in the bath) I turned a page and fell for an older man, and anonymous at that, hardly ideal – he was four hundred and forty-five, I was fourteen. ‘Eureka!’ streaked each thought (I prayed no-one would hear) and Paradise all term was page 179 (I prayed no-one would guess). Of course my fingers, sticky with toffee and bliss, failed to entice him from his century; his cool grey stare fastened me firmly in mine. I got six overdues, suspension of borrowing rights and a D in Physics. But had by heart what Archimedes proves. Ten years later I married: a European with cool grey eyes, a moustache, pigskin gloves.

I ne’er was struck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet, Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower And stole my heart away complete. My face turned pale as deadly pale, My legs refused to walk away, And when she looked, what could I ail? My life and all seemed turned to clay. And then my blood rushed to my face And took my eyesight quite away, The trees and bushes round the place Seemed midnight at noonday. I could not see a single thing, Words from my eyes did start— They spoke as chords do from the string, And blood burnt round my heart. Are flowers the winter’s choice? Is love’s bed always snow? She seemed to hear my silent voice, Not love's appeals to know. I never saw so sweet a face As that I stood before. My heart has left its dwelling-place And can return no more.

"The Eagle has landed!" —Apollo II Commander Neil A. Armstrong "A magnificent desolation!" — Air Force Colonel Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. July 20, 1969 That afternoon in mid-July, Two pilgrims watched from distant space The moon ballooning in the sky. They rose to meet it face-to-face. Their spidery spaceship,Eagle, dropped Down gently on the lunar sand. And when the module's engines stopped, Rapt silence fell across the land. The first man down the ladder, Neil, Spoke words that we remember now— “One small step...” It made us feel As if we were there too, somehow. When Neil planted the flag and Buzz Collected lunar rocks and dust, They hopped like kangaroos because Of gravity. Or wanderlust? A quarter million miles away, One small blue planet watched in awe. And no one who was there that day Will soon forget the sight they saw.

Up from wood rot, wrinkling up from duff and homely damps, spore-born and cauled like a meager seer, it pushes aside earth to make a small place from decay. Bashful, it brings honeycombed news from below of the coming plenty and everything rising.