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1. X-Men #141 & 142 2. Defenders #125 3. Phoenix: The Untold Story 4. What if. . .? #31 5. New Mutants #1 6. New Mutants #2 7. Micronauts #58 8. Marvel Universe #5 9. New Mutants #14 10. Secret Wars #1

And then came the ten moons Full in the sun’s glare, and the seraphim, And it was light all night in the orchards And on the plains and even in the towns And mankind rejoiced, because it was now the case That the wrecking and equivocating could carry on The pale night long. Mankind rejoiced And went forth to those places twelve hours of light Had not made it worth the while to despoil And gamboled collectively on the cliff tops And regarded the night-broiling of the sea Hitherto forbidden, but now opened in festival. Half the world’s time unpeeled and exposed So fruit might ripen faster and trees flourish higher And forced photosynthesis green all the land. Then night ramblers, night-sun-worshippers, Night-motorists fanned out and made the most Of spectral light, which bleached out stars and even The cozy old moon herself, who had Once held a sickle broadside to the sun, and now Was a hollow daytime shadow. Only a few old believers slept Hand in hand, shoulder to breast, As if their lives depended on it, knowing yet That the morning would bring nothing Because the day knew no beginning And had no end.

The rain comes late, draws the afternoon into darkness, no light where there should be light, no way to be but drenched until it curves down over your lips. The taste of every living thing is in the raindrop the way all things open their eyes inside a single bloom in the garden that is now hushed in a robe. Whatever you feel about it, whether you live for it or pray for the rains to die, the water joins with all of us, tendon, bone, artery, vein, saliva, everything that melts and goes hard, escapes as air. The water brings a reunion for a moment with what we know each time we breathe ourselves here or are forced to breathe. If I write without color it is to obey the gray way rain brings the past to us. The ten thousand are one giant palace with a room for remembering, where you must stand alone, touch and believe while it seems you are touching nothing and have gone all mad in this life, this gift. We are sitting on a rock in the thick falling of water, purple lilies are growing in the sun's ocean shadow, sheep with golden wool are flying in the trees, a patient monkey is bandaging a wounded blade of grass, the garden is a mesa, seeds are mountain caves, the moon has gone infinite, made two of its own selves for each of our palms. Now we have faces.

The Phoenicians guarded a recipe that required ten thousand murex shells to make an ounce of Tyrian purple. Scan the surface of Aldebaran with a radio wave; grind lapis lazuli into ultramarine. Search the summer sky for an Anasazi turkey constellation; see algae under an electron microscope resemble a Magellanic Cloud. A chemist tried to convert benzene into quinine, but blundered into a violet aniline dye instead. Have you ever seen maggots feed on a dead rat? Listen to a red-tailed hawk glide over the hushed spruce and pines in a canyon. Feel a drop of water roll down a pine needle, and glisten, hanging, at the tip.

I’ve long had what Soviet psychiatrists called “a tendency toward vagrancy.” At four I would run away from home repeatedly for a whole day, alone or sometimes with a friend named Boris of like age. Knew full well we “just can’t do this,” but nudge for nudge and wink for wink, we’d board the trolleybus #10, I think, buy tickets at four kopeks each from our gleanings and savings of the week, stick them into the ticket punch on the wall, watch the chad fall as you pulled, and ride all across Kishinev in half an hour to get off near that unforgettable restaurant built in the likeness of a huge wine barrel. We peered inside, it was cool. Then we had options: go and splash in the local artificial lake (I couldn’t swim yet), wonder in between along the banks, catching frogs to take home in a glass jar to populate a small construction pond (why did we always use my shirt to do this?), or go and explore the local flea market, which was not at all safe to do, but even at four it’s nice to have options. (One guy sold what we thought was a gun, we asked him and he confirmed it.) Those were days of cholera epidemics in Moldova. We’d buy peasant-cooked fodder corn on the cob when we got hungry, haggled with old ladies over pennies. We wouldn’t catch the return trolley until sunset. Then it’s always the same picture: the wicket creaks open, the landlord’s mutant barks through froth, my wet shirt clings. I step out of the dark toward my mother waiting by the door of our “temporary house” on Kaluga Street, which was a bit of a dirt road, probably still is. She has been crying, takes me inside. Room and kitchen (no bathroom or running water): the room had a brick stove, the kitchen a dirt floor (with mice and sometimes grass) and a white washstand — these lines are all that has survived of them. There was great beauty in their squalor. She has been crying, takes me inside, says she will scold me later. I know it will be soon. First she must call the cops to tell them I’ve been found. Of course, back then I didn’t understand anything: neither how a poet harms his mother, nor how alienated (thank you, Marx, for that term) one can be from the start, and free in the grip of that greatest paradox of all — a happy Soviet childhood.

There was a time we had functional alignment. I was your individual contributor, you my associate director. On Monday I said Happy Monday, rolling my rimshot grin. Ring-fenced by cool molecules, like cattle, I battled biosimilars, sipped local gin; I tried my luck at affairs and trade fairs, optimistic as a fantasy suite. I inked the deal, the ink slick and permanent, like President Reagan. I didn’t sleep unless I felt sick. Something was always gated on a fragile something. Everything on the critical path. The whiteboard, cruel as conceptual math, scope creep like a disease. Some of those days, our parent showed up, bespoke shoes bearing Leckerli. I felt like a starlet on a cruisy backlot, an outpost of opportunity. I took on a new role, went through the motions and the typing pool. But the bonus was no bonus, any more than the bay. Like tender, it started to fray. My admin booked a good weekend of atrocity. I winced. I slid the To-Hurt folder below a molecule’s Package Insert. Then came the Efficiency Report, my resignation. I packed up the brood for Orlando, a last resort. I cut off my khaki pants at the knee, traded in the wife — this is the Epcot Center of my life! I want to thank you in advance. I’d fallen out of favor, like a nation.

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burned to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.

Tender only to one Tender and true The petals swing To my fingering Is it you, or you, or you? Tender only to one I do not know his name And the friends who fall To the petals’ call May think my love to blame. Tender only to one This petal holds a clue The face it shows But too well knows Who I am tender to. Tender only to one, Last petal’s latest breath Cries out aloud From the icy shroud His name, his name is Death.

Yes, I was jealous when you threw the glass. I wanted the shattering against the wood-paneled floor for myself, to be the sudden diaspora of its pieces across the apartment — and last night when we fought, I wanted you to hit me so badly I begged. And the other day walking past Renewal-on-the-Bowery, when one of the men smoking unsteadily outside called me a faggot, I thought: Good. People get what they deserve. Then I wished I were more like Jesus — capable of loving all people and all things always, capable of nothing but love. I waste half my wishes this way, wishing to be virtuous. The rest, well, I don’t have to tell you, do I?

Tenderness and rot share a border. And rot is an aggressive neighbor whose iridescence keeps creeping over. No lessons can be drawn from this however. One is not two countries. One is not meat corrupting. It is important to stay sweet and loving.