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photo of United States from outer space in trash green fire held to everything as everyone whirls into abs- tr- action a moment with the crystal and the weight of the house is released we hold fast we hold one another we hold to the vigor of the street pain of picked flower our frame reckless but never monochrome everything the speed and tension of eloping saunter past barricades waking not sleeping to dream

loaded like spoons into the belly of Jesus where we lay for weeks for months in the sweat and stink of our own breathing Jesus why do you not protect us chained to the heart of the Angel where the prayers we never tell and hot and red as our bloody ankles Jesus Angel can these be men who vomit us out from ships called Jesus    Angel    Grace of God onto a heathen country Jesus Angel ever again can this tongue speak can these bones walk Grace Of God can this sin live

Once a week a nurse comes to town to cut up a baklava. I find executives in my pants.

As cars pass, laboring through the slush, a boy, bundled against the stiff wind in his snow suit, gloves, and scarf, leans on his upright toboggan, waiting his turn atop the snow-packed overpass— the highest point in town. First one car exits, and then another, each creeping down the icy ramp. The brown grass pokes through the two grooves carved in the short hill. As the second car fishtails to a stop at the bottom, brake lights glowing on the dirty snow, the boy’s turn comes. His trip to the bottom is swift— only a second or two— and he bails out just before the curb. It’s not much, but it’s sledding in Wichita.

On the ridge above Skelp Road bears binge on blackberries and apples, even grapes, knocking down the Petersens’ arbor to satisfy the sweet hunger that consumes them.  Just like us they know the day must come when the heart slows, when to take one more step would mean the end of things as they should be.  Sleep is a drug; dreams its succor.  How better to drift toward another world but with leaves falling, their warmth draping us, our stomachs full and fat with summer?

Pawnbroker, scavenger, cheapskate, come creeping from your pigeon-filled backrooms, past guns and clocks and locks and cages, past pockets emptied and coins picked from the floor; come sweeping with the rainclouds down the river through the brokenblack windows of factories to avenues where movies whisk through basement projectors and children peel up into the supplejack twilight— there a black-eyed straight-backed drag queen preens, fusses, fixes her hair in a shop window on Prince, a young businessman jingles his change and does his Travis Bickle for a long-faced friend, there on the corner I laughed at a joke Jim made. In the bedroom the moon is a dented spoon, cold, getting colder, so hurry sleep, come creep into bed, let’s get it over with; lay me down and close my eyes and tell me whip, tell me winnow tell me sweet tell me skittish tell me No tell me no such thing tell me straw into gold tell me crept into fire tell me lost all my money tell me hoarded , verboten , but promise tomorrow I will be profligate, stepping into the sun like a trophy.

We cannot push ourselves away from this quiet, even in our sprees of inattention, the departing passengers stubbing out their smokes, arrivees in tears, lots of cellophane, the rumpus over parking. Wind scrapes leaves across the road, first flashes of snow, it is dark then it’s really dark. Forgive me for not writing for so long, I’ve been right beside you, one of the vaguer divinities blocking your way with its need to confess all its botched attempts at love, what started the whole mess. I love this place, its absurd use of balustrade, the chairs that dig into the spine, motorcyclists propping their drunk girlfriends in the sun, men playing timed chess with themselves, the guarantees and warnings that entice us to the brink of what they warn about. But we can do no more than pass through these rooms and their sudden chills where once a plea was entered almost unintentionally that seemed at last to reveal ourselves to ourselves, immaculate, bereft, deserving to be found.

Derelict thoughts (scattered over the South Pacific) of one dying in the ship’s hold somewhere between 15–30 degrees latitude and 135–150 degrees southern longitude at the crux of time stretched to its limit.

The tuba wakes before the man. It’s a content animal: having no word, for the moment, suits it fine. It looks at him with a dun and smooth interiority, as a glass of rum might, or a worn number on an apartment building: his hands, crossed on the chest, rise and fall with breathing. In the dream, he’s ringing the bell now; climbing, unlocking the door, peering into a glass. The flat is empty. Is the war over yet? Or was he here before the war? Soon, dropping salt levels will wake him— in tears, with an odd groove in his palm, as though he’d held on to an instrument for hours. For a good minute, he’ll be nameless, and when a name does come, it won’t be his: humming in thought the bright last name he rang on the doorbell, he’ll see, in a certain abrupt sunlight: he’d chosen her, then— to be able to call everything something.

As Ann came in one summer’s day, She felt that she must creep, So silent was the clear cool house, It seemed a house of sleep. And sure, when she pushed open the door, Rapt in the stillness there, Her mother sat, with stooping head, Asleep upon a chair; Fast—fast asleep; her two hands laid Loose-folded on her knee, So that her small unconscious face Looked half unreal to be: So calmly lit with sleep’s pale light Each feature was; so fair Her forehead—every trouble was Smoothed out beneath her hair. But though her mind in dream now moved, Still seemed her gaze to rest— From out beneath her fast-sealed lids, Above her moving breast— On Ann; as quite, quite still she stood; Yet slumber lay so deep Even her hands upon her lap Seemed saturate with sleep. And as Ann peeped, a cloudlike dread Stole over her, and then, On stealthy, mouselike feet she trod, And tiptoed out again.