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Amy, Amy, at this distance you’re the smell of liver, tinnitus that keeps me up, afraid: your fortressness must now be tested. The way you took me in without a surfeit click or gesture: seagull kerchief binding my gut to safety on the swimming haul among night-images.       I went to the place I was born and it plainly was a bride. So I ran after her. When she turned into a star I swallowed her. And out of this uneasiness will come an aster. Amy, I’m inside my granddad’s mind of wood: the grass is finer, constellations thicker. The plums are normal. How much sugar did you buy alone at Waldbaums? Brook reeds here wake from your hair’s soul’s chilly patronage. The hair’s the soul, the reeds its body—alone in their beds like schoolgirls: I feel and feel them up. The cigarettes have made them crazy! But a rabbit someone flows out of the embankment and I shiver for you, Amy oh lengthy dappled wig: there’s a swan in your breathing. There always is.

(for Vanessa) Melissa and I were sitting by the little lake in Green Park in London playing “swapping minds.” It’s an old game that came down from the Lowlands. It was a fine day so we had brought a little picnic. Melissa makes wonderful pâté, as good as anything from Fortnum & Masson. Yummy. And we had a half bottle of Chardonnay between us. Here is how the game of “swapping minds” goes. It’s not a child’s game, it’s very intellectual, or should I say psychological. Just imagine Melissa and I are talking. She says something to me, “James why are you always so arrogant?” But, obviously that’s not what she is thinking. To answer her I must try to imagine what she was thinking when she asked that. I must swap minds with her. I ventured the following: “Melissa, you have the most lovely white skin in England, you must be careful not to get sunburned. Melissa:“James, why do you pretend you are Scots when you’re really of Irish descent?” James:“Melissa, are you remembering the handsome Russian boy you met in the Hermitage on your trip to Russia and he took you to have an ice cream with him?” Melissa:“James, did the other boys in school tease you because you were so bad at games?” James:“Do you really love me or are you just flirting?” Melissa:“I’m sorry, James, but the response is in your mind, not in mine.” That was the end of the “swapping game” for that day, and such a happy day it was, there in Green Park, watching the ducks on the pond.

Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees Letting his arms hang down to laugh, The zebra stripes along his jaw Swelling to maculate giraffe. The circles of the stormy moon Slide westward toward the River Plate, Death and the Raven drift above And Sweeney guards the hornèd gate. Gloomy Orion and the Dog Are veiled; and hushed the shrunken seas; The person in the Spanish cape Tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees Slips and pulls the table cloth Overturns a coffee-cup, Reorganised upon the floor She yawns and draws a stocking up; The silent man in mocha brown Sprawls at the window-sill and gapes; The waiter brings in oranges Bananas figs and hothouse grapes; The silent vertebrate in brown Contracts and concentrates, withdraws; Rachel née Rabinovitch Tears at the grapes with murderous paws; She and the lady in the cape Are suspect, thought to be in league; Therefore the man with heavy eyes Declines the gambit, shows fatigue, Leaves the room and reappears Outside the window, leaning in, Branches of wistaria Circumscribe a golden grin; The host with someone indistinct Converses at the door apart, The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud And let their liquid siftings fall To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud. 1918, 1919

they move in swift on the Swift Plants in six states & sift through the faces to separate the dark from the light like meat & seat them in the back of vans packed tight like the product they pack & who's to pick up the slack the black & white can't cut it so the beef stacks sell single to feed the pack       the flock who block passages & clog the cogs of the machine       the process not so swift to give & grant a wish of a place       a stake in the land handling the steaks for the rest to take in       to sate the mouths of the stock who have stock in the business of beef & beef with the brown who ground them

It’s always been a wish of mine (Or should I say a dream) To scare my sister half to death And hear her piercing scream. That’s why I squished four bugs until They all were very dead, Then took them to my sister’s room And put them in her bed. After we had said goodnight, My heart began to pound. I waited and I waited, but She never made a sound. And then I got so doggone tired I couldn’t stay awake. I climbed into my own warm bed And shrieked—there was a snake! It wiggled, and I leaped and fell And bruised my bottom half; Then I heard an awful sound— It was my sister’s laugh.

Those strokes which mates in mirth do give do seem to be but light, Although sometime they leave a sign seems grievous to the sight. He that is void of any friend, him company to keep, Walks in a world of wilderness, full fraught with dangers deep. Each lover knoweth what he likes and what he doth desire, But seld, or never, doth he know what thing he should require. Affection fond deceives the wise and love makes men such noddies That to their selves they seem as dead yet live in other bodies. Ask nothing of thy neighbour that thou wouldst not let him have: Nor say him nay of that which thou wouldst get if thou didst crave. Two eyes, two ears, and but one tongue Dame Nature hath us framed That we might see and hear much more than should with tongue be named. Seek not each man to please, for that is more than God bids do: Please thou the best, and neuer care, what wicked say thereto.

It has been a while since you died, so where is your ghost? Haven’t seen him ever. You died twice and are double dead: failed the makeup exam. Tell me what my body does after your Internet reading. I like the idea of a controlled blast, leaping over page and stanza break alike. On one side a waterfall, soft hair, and on the other side a parallel waterfall, retreated on the wind. Another year pissed, made mulch. Still I squint for the clue he’d been by, a little urine left in the bowl. Makes fruit of the old sign still bright behind the tree.

Reader unmov’d and Reader unshaken, Reader unseduc’d and unterrified, through the long-loud and the sweet-still I creep toward you. Toward you, I thistle and I climb. I crawl, Reader, servile and cervine, through this blank season, counting—I sleep and I sleep. I sleep, Reader, toward you, loud as a cloud and deaf, Reader, deaf as a leaf. Reader:Why don’t you turn pale?

Drew down the curse of heaven on her umbrella furled and smelling of wet cigarettes, Jo ran off in rain one pitchy night, one bloody a.m. found her staring, snoring. “Why do we all stay up so late?” Jo queried. “Though I don’t stay up so late as my friends.” She tripped the little bomb of wasps. They got her. Tears for Jo, four, each perfect, waspish. A silver tongue and piss-blond hair decants a funeral oblation for the mouse. “She was a rare sight, a winning wonder. Jo cultivates her toothaches elsewhere.”

I can smell the sweet scent of my own sweat as I blow high with the breeze and swing, I pump my legs like a child again my skinny kid’s butt holds me down, keeps me grounded when adults threaten to pull me off. My chain breaks as I tempt to kiss the sun, my knees have a life of their own bending as if my very existence depended on it, and it does, for I’d rather be a nut flying high over people’s heads than on the ground dying touching the earth, staining the water with my unclean mind, my hands washing red off the money so I can sleep off my power trip and back stabbing toys. I was an old soul at five spouting off about the filth of my generation. I knew greed was the root of all evil, competition in close cousin. I had my doubts about civilization as I found it and convinced my sister Tricia to wear flannel jammies zipped to the throat in the summer to protect us from the babysitter’s bloodsucking husband while our parents went out for supper. July 2, 1998