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In the age of the fish, cobblestones shift through a square & in hand turn old weapon — beyond the city an ocean swings in pelicans & spinner dolphins, leaves them on the Peruvian shore, or in a small town two thousand blackbirds fall from the Arkansas sky “just like last year” — but far off in the silence of the rural plains this cow wallows on a grassy mound till a muzzle merges from another world, onlookers gawk along a picket fence as she pushes the head & two hooves & then stands to open for the calf that makes way with a message — a woman in the shape of a cloud saying return to your people & tell them I am coming.

The birth isn’t about poetry It is about screaming pain on a Sunday Hailing a cab and head racing To the hospital, now so close to the new apartment I had a baby inside of me But no one expected it to happen so fast Or then at least they said they didn’t Maybe they expected it to happen so fast All along Alone in the waiting room I shook and shook And the blood ran down my legs Later with the magnesium I thought of the many permutations of the bald head Pale, pickling fish skin, glowing with scales When she came out, she was dark and full of hair No blood, but born in the caul Like the other magical realities of my past accomplishments When she came out she cried and it sounded like me But passed me, into her new reality Now 3 weeks later, they say I am still not an erotic object So I wander the park in the snow with my friend We light candles and pray to the darkness We light the park on fire and the police come and find us When they take us to the jail, I say no, it’s not right I am a mother after all They say, but where is your baby And I say, no no, my baby my baby They say, yes yes, look at your beautiful baby I say, I do, I do Look, look, and listen My baby my baby She’s here

Today's the rider's birthday. I see you're already lower-casing him... Would you rather I... What is this "I." You have none. Today's the rider's birthday. Except he's dead. In a contrary mood today? Not in the way you'd think. I'm you're friend, remember? And I can't hurt you. I have no body. Neither does Krang. K-----? The bodiless brain. The Ninja Turtles' nemesis. The guy who oversees all of their activities. And yet you carry him in your pocket like a good luck charm. You perplex your son who can't see the humor in your perversity because to him Krang is just, to put it plainly, disgusting.

On the birthday of the world I begin to contemplate what I have done and left undone, but this year not so much rebuilding of my perennially damaged psyche, shoring up eroding friendships, digging out stumps of old resentments that refuse to rot on their own. No, this year I want to call myself to task for what I have done and not done for peace. How much have I dared in opposition? How much have I put on the line for freedom? For mine and others? As these freedoms are pared, sliced and diced, where have I spoken out? Who have I tried to move? In this holy season, I stand self-convicted of sloth in a time when lies choke the mind and rhetoric bends reason to slithering choking pythons. Here I stand before the gates opening, the fire dazzling my eyes, and as I approach what judges me, I judge myself. Give me weapons of minute destruction. Let my words turn into sparks.

It is important to remember that you will die, lifting the fork with the sheep's brain lovingly speared on it to the mouth: the little piece smooth on the one side as a baby mouse pickled in wine; on the other, blood- plush and intestinal atop its bed of lentils. The lentils were once picked over for stones in the fields of India perhaps, the sun shining into tractor blades slow moving as the swimmer’s arms that pierce, then rise, then pierce again the cold water of this river outside your window called The Heart or The Breast, even, but meaning something more than this, beyond the crudeness of flesh, though what is crude about flesh anyway, watching yourself every day lose another bit of luster? It is wrong to say one kind of beauty replaces another. Isn’t it your heart along with its breast muscles that has started to weaken; solace isn’t possible for every loss, or why else should we clutch, stroke, grasp, love the little powers we once were born with? Perhaps the worst thing in the world would be to live forever. Otherwise, what would be the point of memory, without which we would have nothing to hurt or placate ourselves with later? Look. It is only getting worse from here on out. Thank God. Otherwise the sun on this filthy river could never be as boring or as poignant, the sheep’s brain trembling on the fork wouldn’t seem once stung by the tang of grass, by the call of some body distant and beloved to it still singing through the milk. The fork would be only a fork, and not the cool heft of it between your fingers, the scratch of lemon in the lentils, onions, parsley slick with blood; food that, even as you lift it to your mouth, you never thought you’d eat. And do.

I In the absence of reliable ghosts I made aria, Coughing into emptiness, and it came A west wind from the plains with its arbitrary arsenal: Torn sails from the Ganga river, Bits of spurned silk, Strips of jute to be fashioned into lines, What words stake—sentence and make-believe, A lyric summoning. II I came into this world in an Allahabad hospital, Close to a smelly cow pasture. I was brought to a barracks, with white walls And corrugated tin roof, Beside a civil aviation training center. In World War II officers were docketed there. I heard the twang of propellers, Jets pumping hot whorls of air, Heaven bent, Blessing my first home. III In an open doorway, in half darkness I see a young woman standing. Her breasts are swollen with milk. She is transfixed, staring at a man, His hair gleaming with sweat, Trousers rolled up Stepping off his bicycle, Mustard bloom catches in his shirt. I do not know what she says to him, Or he to her, all that is utterly beyond me. Their infant once a clot of blood Is spectral still. Behind this family are vessels of brass Dotted with saffron, The trunk of a mango tree chopped into bits, Ready to be burnt at the household fire. IV Through the portals of that larger chaos, What we can scarcely conceive of in our minds— We'd rather think of starry nights with biting flames Trapped inside tree trunks, a wellspring of desire Igniting men and gods, A lava storm where butterflies dance— Comes bloodletting at the borders, Severed tongues, riots in the capital, The unspeakable hurt of history: So the river Ganga pours into the sea. V In aftermath—the elements of vocal awakening: Crud, spittle, snot, menstrual blistering, Also infant steps, a child's hunger, a woman's rage At the entrance to a kitchen, Her hands picking up vegetable shavings, chicken bones, Gold tossed from an ancestral keep. All this flows into me as mottled memory, Mixed with syllables of sweat, gashed syntax, Strands of burst bone in river sand, Beside the buried stones of Sarasvati Koop— Well of mystic sky-water where swans Dip their throats and come out dreaming.

Rome, 15— Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? Nephews—sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well— She, men would have to be your mother once, Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! What's done is done, and she is dead beside, Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, And as she died so must we die ourselves, And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, And up into the aery dome where live The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, Put me where I may look at him! True peach, Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! Draw close: that conflagration of my church —What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, Drop water gently till the surface sink, And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ... Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, And corded up in a tight olive-frail, Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ... Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, That brave Frascati villa with its bath, So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, Like God the Father's globe on both His hands Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black— 'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve. My bath must needs be left behind, alas! One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world— And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line— Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! And then how I shall lie through centuries, And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, And see God made and eaten all day long, And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, Dying in state and by such slow degrees, I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, About the life before I lived this life, And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, —Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart? Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, They glitter like your mother's for my soul, Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, To comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone— Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— And no more lapis to delight the world! Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers— Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was!

The Bison is vain, and (I write it with pain) The Door-mat you see on his head Is not, as some learned professors maintain, The opulent growth of a genius’ brain; But is sewn on with needle and thread.

She was thinner, with a mannered gauntness as she paused just inside the double glass doors to survey the room, silvery cape billowing dramatically behind her.What’s this, I thought, lifting a hand until she nodded and started across the parquet; that’s when I saw she was dressed all in gray, from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl down to the graphite signature of her shoes. “Sorry I’m late,” she panted, though she wasn’t, sliding into the chair, her cape tossed off in a shudder of brushed steel. We kissed. Then I leaned back to peruse my blighted child, this wary aristocratic mole. “How’s business?” I asked, and hazarded a motherly smile to keep from crying out: Are you content to conduct your life as a cliché and, what’s worse, an anachronism, the brooding artist’s demimonde? Near the rue Princesse they had opened a gallery cum souvenir shop which featured fuzzy off-color Monets next to his acrylics, no doubt, plus bearded African drums and the occasional miniature gargoyle from Notre Dame the Great Artist had carved at breakfast with a pocket knife. “Tourists love us. The Parisians, of course”— she blushed—“are amused, though not without a certain admiration ...” The Chateaubriand arrived on a bone-white plate, smug and absolute in its fragrant crust, a black plug steaming like the heart plucked from the chest of a worthy enemy; one touch with her fork sent pink juices streaming. “Admiration for what?” Wine, a bloody Pinot Noir, brought color to her cheeks. “Why, the aplomb with which we’ve managed to support our Art”—meaning he’d convinced her to pose nude for his appalling canvases, faintly futuristic landscapes strewn with carwrecks and bodies being chewed by rabid cocker spaniels. “I’d like to come by the studio,” I ventured, “and see the new stuff.” “Yes, if you wish ...” A delicate rebuff before the warning: “He dresses all in black now. Me, he drapes in blues and carmine— and even though I think it’s kinda cute, in company I tend toward more muted shades.” She paused and had the grace to drop her eyes. She did look ravishing, spookily insubstantial, a lipstick ghost on tissue, or as if one stood on a fifth-floor terrace peering through a fringe of rain at Paris’ dreaming chimney pots, each sooty issue wobbling skyward in an ecstatic oracular spiral. “And he never thinks of food. I wish I didn’t have to plead with him to eat ....” Fruit and cheese appeared, arrayed on leaf-green dishes. I stuck with café crème. “This Camembert’s so ripe,” she joked, “it’s practically grown hair,” mucking a golden glob complete with parsley sprig onto a heel of bread. Nothing seemed to fill her up: She swallowed, sliced into a pear, speared each tear-shaped lavaliere and popped the dripping mess into her pretty mouth. Nowhere the bright tufted fields, weighted vines and sun poured down out of the south. “But are you happy?” Fearing, I whispered it quickly. “What? You know, Mother”— she bit into the starry rose of a fig— “one really should try the fruit here.” I’ve lost her, I thought, and called for the bill.

Now, when he and I meet, after all these years, I say to the bitch inside me, don’t start growling. He isn’t a trespasser anymore, Just an old acquaintance tipping his hat. My voice says, “Nice to see you,” As the bitch starts to bark hysterically. He isn’t an enemy now, Where are your manners, I say, as I say, “How are the children? They must be growing up.” At a kind word from him, a look like the old days, The bitch changes her tone; she begins to whimper. She wants to snuggle up to him, to cringe. Down, girl! Keep your distance Or I’ll give you a taste of the choke-chain. “Fine, I’m just fine,” I tell him. She slobbers and grovels. After all, I am her mistress. She is basically loyal. It’s just that she remembers how she came running Each evening, when she heard his step; How she lay at his feet and looked up adoringly Though he was absorbed in his paper; Or, bored with her devotion, ordered her to the kitchen Until he was ready to play. But the small careless kindnesses When he’d had a good day, or a couple of drinks, Come back to her now, seem more important Than the casual cruelties, the ultimate dismissal. “It’s nice to know you are doing so well,” I say. He couldn’t have taken you with him; You were too demonstrative, too clumsy, Not like the well-groomed pets of his new friends. “Give my regards to your wife,” I say. You gag As I drag you off by the scruff, Saying, “Goodbye! Goodbye! Nice to have seen you again.”